According to the indictment, area managers and scientific informants of pharmaceutical companies, general practitioners and pharmacists allegedly, through false prescriptions, pocketed the reimbursement money for drugs costing up to 400 euros which would then end up in the trash.
No place to proceed against Michele Salzo, a professional from Conversano held by the Bari prosecutor responsible for the 20 million euro scam on the NHS
Of Online editorial staff – 16/04/2015 – NOON COURIER Chronicle
The second criminal section of the Court of Bari has declared the non-proceedings for prescription of all crimes against the doctor of Conversano (Bari) Michele Salzo, considered by the Public Prosecutor of Bari to be the leader and creator of the alleged 20 million euro scam to the national health service, the so-called Farmatruffa, dating back to 2002.
The judges also declared the ineffectiveness of the 91,000 euro preventive seizure order carried out in 2006 against the doctor. Sums that will now have to be returned to him. For Salzo, who in the context of this proceeding was arrested in 2003 at the disposition of the Bari judiciary, this is the bis trial of first instance after the Court of Appeal in February 2013 had declared the «nullity of the notification of the decree which orders the judgment», ordering the return of the documents to the Court of Bari.
At first instance, on 14 October 2010, the doctor had been sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment and together with him had been 
sentenced another 77 defendants to sentences of between 7 years and 6 months. According to the indictment, area managers and scientific informants of pharmaceutical companies, general practitioners and pharmacists allegedly, through false prescriptions, pocketed the reimbursement money for drugs costing up to 400 euros which would then end up in the trash. In the appeal, the statute of limitations was declared for 71 people and the provisional of over 600 thousand euros granted to the Puglia Region, civil party, was cancelled.
The judges then ordered a new first-instance trial for Salzo alone, defended by lawyers Sergio Ruggiero and Antonio Romano. In the meantime, the crimes charged against the Conversano doctor, criminal conspiracy and aggravated fraud, have also become statute-barred.
