At the request of the Tirana Prosecutor's Office, the assets of "International Medicare" shpk and "Sante Plus Group" were seized, following suspicions of financial fraud and tax evasion. The investigations began after a complaint from a Portuguese citizen who claimed to have been defrauded by the hospital. During the inspections, over 1 million euros in non-tax invoices and expired medications were found. According to the investigations, the hospitals have hidden millions of lek in income and have not paid tax obligations to the state.
NOTICE
At the request of the Tirana Prosecution, the assets of International Medicare shpk and Sante Plus are seized, over 1 million euros of non-tax invoices are found, they hid their income and did not pay taxes
At the request of the Prosecutor's Office at the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction, Tirana, a conservative seizure was imposed on all movable and immovable assets of the entities International Medicare shpk and Sante Plus Group.
The investigations on criminal proceedings no. 5022, year 2024, for criminal offenses provided for by articles 143/2, 179/3 and 180/3 of the Criminal Code, conducted in cooperation with the Tax Investigation Directorate at the General Directorate of Taxes and the Economic and Financial Crime Section at the Tirana Police Directorate, began after a complaint by a Portuguese citizen, CS, against the entity International Medicare shpk (former Sante Plus Group).
This citizen paid an amount of 5200 euros to receive three services from this hospital but the doctors who were to perform the interventions left the hospital. After several cancellations, he requested a refund of the amount of money but without success. The complainant stated that he was cheated by this hospital after they took his money and did not provide him with the service using various excuses.
Based on the facts presented in the complaint of citizen CS and the statements taken from the employees, it was proven that this hospital operated with manual mandates and not tax vouchers. During the inspection, 1 million euros in non-tax, undeclared invoices were found, while it is suspected that people working as doctors were mainly Turkish citizens, unlicensed as doctors in the Republic of Albania. A report was kept on the inspection of the scene where various expired medications were found and fixed as material evidence in the surgical rooms, as well as medications whose sale is prohibited and which are only allowed for use in private hospitals.
In the context of the criminal investigation, the tax authorities conducted an audit and it resulted that the entity "Sante Plus" has obligations arising from non-declaration of the real salary. This entity has hidden and has not declared the exact salary of its employees, as a result it has hidden the exact value of the social and health insurance contributions. The tax audit has assessed as undeclared tax by the company with effect on VAT the amount of 12,826,573 Lek. The same audit also resulted in this entity having to issue invoices for 11 invoices worth 112,736,764 Lek, with an undeclared VAT tax of 22,547,353 Lek. According to this act, the entity "Sante Plus" has incurred tax liabilities from concealment and non-declaration of salaries for the years 2018-2023 in the amount of 4,510,786 lek, as well as for undeclared tax with VAT effect in the amount of 35,373,926 lek.
Likewise, there are reasonable suspicions based on evidence that the entity International Medicare shpk acted in violation of the law by hiding the income received from patients, by not declaring this income to the tax authorities in the relevant fiscal systems, but by receiving this income with non-fiscal collection mandates.
Under these conditions, there is sufficient evidence that the persons under investigation and the entity International Medicare have concealed income in significant amounts, preventing payments from being made to the state budget for this income, causing great economic damage to the interests of the Albanian state.
The documents showed that under the conditions of the audit report and the illegal actions in concealing income and non-payment of taxes by Sante Plus Group with partner BK and administrator EZ, the company was registered with the Central Bank of Kosovo and the entity International Medicare Ltd. also with the same partner and administrator.
These actions of the persons under investigation are suspected to have been carried out with the sole purpose of not paying taxes and fees in favor of the state, in the conditions when, according to the extract from the National Bank of Albania, a series of conservative seizures were imposed on Sante Plus Group by the bailiff's office for the execution of court decisions.
