Tarbes: optical fraud, four healthcare professionals sanctioned
The Tarbes court has sanctioned three opticians and a doctor for a system of fictitious spectacle reimbursements causing damage to health insurance and mutual insurance funds.
Tarbes: optical fraud, four healthcare professionals sanctioned
On 23 June 2026, the Tarbes courts ruled in a vast fraud targeting health coverage organisations. Four vision sector professionals were subject to prosecution.
The facts concerned a scam involving reimbursements for visual correction equipment. The accused had issued invoices for pairs of spectacles that had never been supplied to beneficiaries. To do this, they used files of people who were genuinely under their care, whilst altering or drafting medical prescriptions without the patients concerned attending consultations.
It was an insured person who exposed the matter by noticing reimbursements on their personal Ameli space linked to products they had never ordered. The confirmed financial loss exceeds 150,000 euros, although investigations suggest the actual sum could be considerably higher.
On the criminal side, the three spectacle businesses were each fined 100,000, 40,000 and 10,000 euros. The first was also subject to a seizure of 10,000 euros. The three traders each received suspended prison sentences as well as financial sanctions. The ophthalmologist practitioner was sentenced to three months with a suspended sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros.
This case constitutes one of the most significant public funds diversion cases in the optical field in south-western France in recent years.
Source: Acuité
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)