DNA sends Hexi Pharma company to court for tax evasion

The file in which Hexi Pharma has been investigated for tax evasion comes to court. After an investigation started almost two years ago, the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) prosecutors have completed their investigation and have concluded that the company has damaged the state budget by more than EUR 2 million.

The company is to be tried for deception, after selling diluted disinfectants to hundreds of hospitals in the country, digi24.ro informs.

The general manager of the company Flori Dinu and the former wife of the Hexi Pharma owner (Dan Condrea), Uliana Ochinciuc, have received a classification solution.

In the same file, Miron Panaitescu (manager of commercial companies and former business partner with Hexi Pharma owner) charged with committing the crime of complicity in money laundering, as well as Erdei Attila (administrator of some commercial companies) for committing the crime of complicity to tax evasion in continued form.

The prosecutor sent to court the Hexi Pharma diluted disinfectants case in early March 2017, after less than a year since the investigation started, for 340 crimes of fraud, use of forgery and indirect participation in committing the crime of preventing fight against diseases. The company, whose owner Dan Condrea died in a suspicious car crash a few days after the scandal flooded to the media, was practically investigated for fraud and for jeopardizing the public health after it allegedly have sold diluted disinfectants to hundreds of hospitals in Romania.

The tests conducted by a lab in the Czech Republic certified that 20 out in 21 products checked are inefficient in countering the bacteria and germs.

The biocides manufactured by Hexi Pharma do not meet the minimum efficiency standards and have no effect even in controlled laboratory conditions, and their questionable effect has ensured conditions for the development of antimicrobial resistance in hospitals, the indictment last year by the Prosecutors General’s Office read.

“The biocides manufactured by SC Hexi Pharma CO SRL do not meet the minimum efficiency standards, as shown by the many tests carried out. The use of SC Hexi Pharma CO SRL biocides does not produce the expected results even under controlled laboratory conditions, much less in a medical unit, where a strict control of the areas where the biocides are used cannot be strictly controlled,” the prosecutors said.

Prosecutors explained that substances sold to hospitals were inadequate, both in terms of indication on the label on the concentration of the active substance and in terms of their efficiency.

“This combination of factors was detrimental to the health system in Romania,” the indictment read.

During June 1, 2010 – May 16, 2016 Hexi Pharma produced and marketed to numerous hospitals 41 biocide products of main group 1, of which 39 were sold to 340 hospitals and were non-compliant in terms of concentration of the active substances and of biocide efficiency.