Police raid over twenty medical offices over alleged fake certificates for migrant detention centers
Italian police have searched more than twenty doctors' offices across the country over suspicions that they issued false medical certificates aimed at keeping undocumented migrants out of CPR detention centers.
Authorities in Italy are conducting coordinated searches of roughly twenty medical practices nationwide after uncovering a scheme to produce counterfeit health certificates intended to prevent irregular migrants from remaining in Centri di permanenza per i rimpatri (CPR). The Polizia di Stato, assisted by the Servizio Centrale Operativo and the Ravenna Mobile Squad, is focusing on physicians—except for a single case—who are not registered in the official list of examined individuals.
The investigation, which began in Ravenna, will also involve major cities including Bari, Biella, Bologna, Firenze, Livorno, Milano, Rimini, Roma and Varese, and will encompass more than twenty doctors. This sweep follows a prior inquiry that led to raids on eight doctors from the infectious diseases department of the Ravenna hospital, who now face charges of falsification and interruption of public service, with 34 certificates identified as fraudulent. Three of those doctors have been prohibited from practicing for ten months, while the remaining practitioners have been barred from issuing CPR-related certificates, according to a ruling by Gip Federica Lipovscek.
