Suspected billing fraud within the ARZ Haan: Dortmund public prosecutor’s workplace on the transfer | EUROtoday

Im Ermittlungsverfahren rund um einen möglichen Betrug im gesundheitswirtschaftlichen Abrechnungsdienst ARZ Haan in zweistelliger Millionenhöhe hat die Dortmunder Kriminalpolizei nach Informationen der F.A.Z. die erste Runde an Zeugenbefragungen durchgeführt. Die dabei festgestellten Beweise hat die Polizei im Dezember 2024 der Staatsanwaltschaft Dortmund vorgelegt. Sie muss nun entscheiden: Wird Anklage erhoben, das Ermittlungsverfahren eingestellt, oder sollen weitere Zeugen vernommen werden?

Die Finanzaufsicht Bafin, die Hinweise erhielt, dass in der ARZ-Tochtergesellschaft RZH Rechnungen insbesondere rund um den Jahreswechsel 2021/22 umgeschrieben worden seien, blieb dagegen bislang von außen betrachtet untätig. Die Bafin ist zuständig, weil es sich bei RZH um ein Factoring-Unternehmen handelt. Bis Dezember 2024 gab es nach Kenntnis der F.A.Z. keinen größeren Austausch zwischen der im Auftrag der Staatsanwaltschaft ermittelnden Dortmunder Kriminalpolizei und der Bafin. Weder die Finanzaufsicht noch der zuständige Kriminalkommissar wollten sich gegenüber der F.A.Z. zum Ermittlungsverfahren rund um ARZ/RZH äußern.

RZH zahlte die Rechnungen an WDS aus, trieb sie aber laut Strafanzeige bei den angeblichen Lieferanten von WDS nicht ein. Der Verdacht lautet nun: Es handelte sich um Scheinrechnungen, denn RZH soll das Geld ausgezahlt haben, ohne dass die Rechnungen wie üblich mit Kundenverträgen, Angeboten, Auftragsbestätigungen oder Lieferscheinen belegt werden mussten. Die Auszahlungen sollen oft via Chat-Zuruf und nicht selten per Eilüberweisung getätigt worden sein – so zumindest legen es die Unterlagen aus der Strafanzeige nahe, die von der F.A.Z. eingesehen werden konnten.

ARZ Haan, which was based a very good 50 years in the past as a pharmacy billing middle and now serves 30 attraction teams within the healthcare sector, denies all allegations or doesn’t need to touch upon them. On December 30, 2024, the FAZ once more confronted her with the query of whether or not staff of ARZ Haan or its subsidiary RZH had supplied assist to the later bancrupt buyer WDS in such a means that WDS was in a position to submit fictitious invoices so as to have the ability to finance corona exams. ARZ didn’t reply to this by the editorial deadline on January 2nd.

In October 2023, ARZ mentioned concerning the supply to WDS to submit fictitious invoices: “To our knowledge: no. We have no evidence of this.” This assertion is astonishing in that ARZ itself initiated a particular investigation by the auditor PWC in September 2022. According to PWC, ARZ’s initiative was primarily based on this motivation: “The background to the commissioning was irregularities in the processing of orders in connection with the provision of Covid-19 tests with the business partner WDS GmbH.”

The outcomes of the particular investigation, which had been despatched in strict confidence solely to ARZ’s creditor banks (Apotheker- und Ärztebank, DZ Bank, Nord LB, some financial savings banks) and of which the FAZ solely turned conscious of after its first report, verify grievances and violations of guidelines ( Compliance) and likewise burden our personal ARZ and RZH staff. On behalf of ARZ, PWC examined 334 paperwork, searched via information on cell telephones of two individuals and the e-mail accounts of 4 individuals and performed 4 interviews and two follow-up conversations. According to the creditor banks’ presentation, PWC discovered that “invoices had been created but not sent immediately and collections had been suspended.”

As the FAZ beforehand reported, on the time of WDS’s insolvency in September 2022, claims totaling a very good 15 million euros had piled up in opposition to RZH over 17 months. Internal management measures within the ARZ had been “not adhered to” and “reportable loans were not reported to the responsible authority,” writes PWC. This could possibly be as a result of RZH, as a factoring firm, might not have the license to grant loans. This may trigger Bafin, which employs round 2,900 individuals, to take measures in opposition to ARZ/RZH if essential. But to date the Bafin has not completed this.

The monetary supervisory authority may additionally name on proof that the then CFO of ARZ Haan, presumably via confidants at RZH, helped WDS to falsify invoices and later rewrite them in order that they didn’t seem within the 2021 annual monetary statements or needed to be written down as irrecoverable. The former ARZ CFO, who left shortly earlier than Christmas 2022, denied to the FAZ in January 2024 that he had had invoices rewritten with confidants on the RZH.

As a results of the particular investigation, PWC reviews that this former AZR CFO met with the now accused WDS managing director in September 2022 with out involving the administration of the subsidiary RZH, which primarily interacts with WDS. These conferences may elevate questions on correct administration within the ARZ Group. But these accountable at Bafin for details about the potential RZH fraud case have modified a number of occasions since they had been submitted in the summertime of 2023 – presumably one motive why the supervisory authority has not but taken motion.

However, ARZ Haan’s auditor, Forvis Mazars, didn’t really feel compelled to appropriate the accounting middle’s steadiness sheets or withdraw their certificates. It could be assumed that Mazars is conscious of the particular investigation by PWC and the FAZ’s reporting and has due to this fact intensively checked internally whether or not steadiness sheets with fictitious invoices have been audited since 2021. Mazars didn’t need to reply questions from the FAZ, similar to whether or not the auditing agency was conscious of the “facts of fictitious invoices” when the certificates was issued for the 2021 annual monetary statements and what penalties must be drawn for the steadiness sheets from 2021 onwards, citing auditors’ responsibility of confidentiality.

In truth, it will likely be tough to show that potential compliance violations by RZH and WDS are criminally related. Despite all of the criticism of the ARZ Haan, PWC was solely in a position to decide within the particular investigation: “The analyzed data does not provide any evidence of knowledge of possible fictitious billing on the part of the people involved.” Whether the Dortmund public prosecutor’s workplace will be capable of present this proof in its investigation , stays open regardless of further paperwork which have now been secured and the generally incriminating witness statements.