“A Wolverhampton pharmacist has been found guilty of fraud relating to COVID-19 grant applications after being charged with making false representations and supplying fake quotation,” the City of Wolverhampton Council last week (February 27) revealed.
Pharmacist Sundip Gill is “the director of two pharmaceutical companies”, Sync Chem Ltd and Collateral Ltd, and traded from four premises including pharmacies named Collateral, Your Pharmacy First, Low Hill Pharmacy, and Fallings Park Pharmacy, it said.
Read more: ‘Litany of dishonesty’: Pharmacist suspended for wholesaling fraud
It added that during the pandemic the council “allocated extra funding…designed to support local businesses to improve their premises and increase carbon efficiency”.
“Gill submitted eight grant applications to the [programme] and could potentially have received a total of £40,000,” it said.
But the council’s counter fraud team “were alerted to discrepancies with the quotations supplied by Gill,” it added.
“Detailed investigation”
The discrepancies lead to the team discovering that “Gill had submitted fake quotations in support of his grant applications,” the council said.
“Following a detailed investigation, Gill was charged with 18 offences of dishonesty” – he was sentenced to 20 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months and “ordered to pay £3,000 costs and a £128 victim surcharge,” it added.
Read more: ‘Vigilant’ locum pharmacist uncovers 20,000-pill tramadol prescription fraud
And his two companies Sync Chem Ltd and Collateral Ltd “were charged with 6 offences of dishonesty, all under sections 1, 2 and 7 of the Fraud Act 2006” and ordered to pay fines totalling £14,690 and £8,690 respectively.
“Gill denied the charges but was subsequently found guilty on all counts at Dudley Magistrates Court on 21 February,” the council said.
“No remorse”
“You have been convicted for being fully involved in fraud and your attempts to exploit a system to assist legitimate businesses,” district judge Graham Wilkinson told Gill during sentencing.
He added that Gill had shown “no remorse”.
Cabinet member for resources councillor Louise Miles said that the council’s programme “was designed to support local businesses…and not to be abused in the way that it was by Sundip Gill”.
Read more: Legal view: Can the NHSCFA deliver the government’s counter-fraud strategy?
“The council has a policy of zero tolerance towards public sector fraud,” she stressed.
“It is far from a victimless crime, and its impacts ripple through our society, affecting every individual and the services we all rely on, and we will not hesitate to take action in instances like this,” she added.
Fraudulent findings
Last March, a pharmacist who forged prescriptions to stock his wholesaling business with medicines was suspended for 12 months
Mohammed Amier forged signatures and sent fake prescriptions to manufacturers so that he could wholesale “high-value” medicines, a fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee heard at the time.
Read more: Revealed: No prosecutable fraud cases against pharmacy contractors since 2021
In April, a Kent locum pharmacist helped to uncover a years-long prescription fraud involving over 20,000 tramadol tablets after he noticed an “unusual” script.
Folkestone-based locum Noman Ahmed told C+D that he “became suspicious” when he recognised the same patient presenting scripts for tramadol issued under different names at different local pharmacies.
