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Five medical executives, three nurses, and two administrative employees from the Dulbecco University Hospital in Catanzaro, Italy, have been arrested and placed under house arrest for alleged abuses in intramural freelance medical activities (*attività intramoenia*). A medical device entrepreneur was also detained. The arrests, ordered by a preliminary investigations judge (GIP) at the request of the Catanzaro Prosecutor’s Office, follow a joint probe by Italy’s Financial Police and Carabinieri.
Fourteen individuals total face investigation for crimes including criminal conspiracy, aggravated fraud against the state, unauthorized computer system access, forgery of administrative documents, embezzlement, false timekeeping records, issuing invoices for phantom services, and money laundering.
Additional measures include a former hospital executive mandated to report regularly to police and another barred from residing in Catanzaro. Authorities seized approximately €1 million from eight medical executives and the businessman, suspected as illicit proceeds.
Investigations by the Financial Police’s Economic-Financial Unit and the Carabinieri’s NAS health fraud squad revealed that eight executives—aided by the hospital’s freelance activity office (Alpi)—systematically violated regulations. They conducted private medical practice outside hospital premises for years, collecting cash payments from patients and depositing only minimal sums into hospital accounts to conceal their scheme.