He worked in a clinic and stole stamps to pose as a doctor and sell prescriptions: he was arrested

A 55-year-old man was arrested Monday by the Argentine Federal Police, accused of taking advantage of his work in a health center in the western area of Greater Buenos Aires to steal supplies and work tools, and posing as a doctor.

Miguel Ángel Maidana, a resident of the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Parque Patricios, was captured Monday afternoon by agents of the Crimes Against Public Health Division of the Federal Investigations Superintendency of the PFA at his home on Cátulo Castillo Street.

The investigation began in January of this year, when that same Division received a complaint about a man who sold trout recipes using his status as a health worker.

After a few weeks of investigative work, it was determined that Maidana, who was an employee of the cleaning and teaching area of Sanatorium AMTA (Mutual Association of Automotive Transport), in the town of Ciudadela, party of Tres de Febrero, was taking advantage of her position to steal stamps from doctors and prescription books.

The investigators were able to verify that Maidana then sold prescriptions and supplies in her neighborhood for prices ranging from 1,500 to 3,500 pesos, as required by her clients, impersonating and forging the signature of a registered doctor.

Once the evidence had been gathered, including prescriptions containing various medical plates and their signature, the prosecutor Walter Eduardo López, in charge of the Contraventional and Misdemeanor Prosecutor's Office No. 17, requested a search at his home and the arrest of Maidana.

In the operation, in addition to the capture of the false doctor, his cell phone was also hijacked, which will be valued, notes that will be of importance for the investigation, doctor's clothing, blank prescription books and prescriptions without diagnosis with different stamps of professionals printed to complete.

Now, Maidana will have to face a criminal case for the crime of illegal practice of medicine, which according to article 208 of the Criminal Code provides for sentences ranging from fifteen days to one year in prison.

In September last year, a woman from the Buenos Aires party La Matanza was arrested in the city of Curuzú Cuatiá, Corrientes province, accused to practice medicine with an identity usurped to a real doctor.

The false doctor, 46, hid behind the identity of Carla N. a registered doctor from the province of Santa Fe, who also worked in Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires territory and presented herself as a pediatrician and gerontologist.

Judge Luis Armella of Federal Court No. 2 in Lomas de Zamora, who began the investigation into a complaint of scams and fraud, and investigation of malpractice against the false doctor, entrusted the proceedings to the Defrauds and Scams Division of the City Police, which initially discovered that the woman operated with a stolen identity.

Thus, the Buenos Aires force raided her house in the town of Virrey del Pino where she was not found but stamps and prescriptions indicating that the trout doctor illegally treated especially vulnerable patients: children and the elderly.

Finally, thanks to the analysis of the telephone cells and social networks, the officers located her in northern Argentina, where she was arrested when she arrived dressed in both and a stethoscope around her neck at an alleged unauthorized clinic where more than 500 records of medical attention were found by the false doctor.

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