The country’s police forces have arrested 13 false health professionals who operated in Caracas and other cities in the last month, according to the count of cases by institutions such as the Prosecutor’s Office, which this Thursday reported a man sentenced to four years for exercising dentistry illegally.
This case is out of the count for the last month, as it was an arrest recorded last May, when detectives from the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigation Corps (Cicpc) captured the man in “flagrancy”, who was later accused of “usurpation of medical functions, continued fraud and illegal practice of medicine.
The director of the Cicpc, Douglas Rico, has reported five other false dentists detained in recent weeks in Caracas, the border state of Zulia and the federal entities of Monagas and Anzoátegui, in the east of the country.
Also, through Instagram, the police chief reported six other arrests, including two “false psychologists”, two “false pharmacists”, a woman who illegally practiced as a gynecologist and another as a cosmetologist.
Including fake vets
In addition, two men ended up arrested in Mérida for maintaining a “false veterinary clinic” because, according to the authorities, they did not have the certifications to practice this profession.
Rico has reiterated that the Cicpc “will frontally attack medical intrusion” through joint work with the Venezuelan Scientific Society of Aesthetics, the Federation of Psychologists, the Homeopathic Medical School, as well as with the professional associations of dentists, pharmacists and doctors.
The Police verify the credentials of other possible suspects with these institutions and, if the fraud is confirmed, will arrest them, “since the misuse of surgical instruments or uncontrolled doses of medication have caused irreversible damage to some citizens.”
“More than 60 people have been arrested for these crimes” in the first half of the year, added the Cicpc. EFE
