A pharmacist has been convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 months by the Brisbane District Court today, 14 March 2023 after pleading guilty to fraudulently claiming more than $1.9 million in payments under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This outcome is the culmination of a strong collaboration between the Department of Health and Aged Care, Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ashgrove pharmacist, Mr Shahin Ardalan was charged with one count of obtaining a financial advantage under section 134.2(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This matter was also referred to the AFP led Criminal Asset Confiscation Taskforce (CACT), which restrained residential property, shares and cryptocurrency linked to Mr Ardalan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 12 July 2022, the District Court of Queensland ordered Mr Ardalan to pay $1.9 million to the Commonwealth pursuant to section 116(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cth)<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The charges relate to an investigation conducted by the Department of Health and Aged Care that found Mr Ardalan unlawfully claimed benefits under the PBS between 5 January 2017 and 1 May 2020. As a result, he received $1,942,515.44 in benefits to which he was not entitled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Ardalan has repaid the money in full through the AFP\u2019s Proceeds of Crime Action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s sentencing is a reminder of the real and serious punishments for those who defraud taxpayers via the Medicare system. The Department of Health and Aged Care takes allegations of Medicare non-compliance very seriously and all tip-offs are reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no place for fraud in the Medicare system. Where incorrectly or fraudulently claimed benefits are identified, the Department will seek to recover those funds and\/or refer matters to the CDPP where criminal prosecution is considered appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone with information about suspected non-compliance or fraud of Government health payments by health providers can make a report via the \u201cReporting Fraud\u201d page on the Department of Health\u2019s website at www.health.gov.au\/fraud-tip-offs<\/a> or by calling the Provider Benefits Integrity Hotline on 1800 314 808.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A pharmacist has been convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 months by the Brisbane District Court today, 14 March 2023 after pleading guilty to fraudulently claiming more than $1.9 million in payments under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). This outcome is the culmination of a strong collaboration between … Continue reading “Ashgrove pharmacist found guilty for more than $1.9m in Medicare fraud”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20690,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20689\/revisions\/20690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}