KEY POINTS:
A Palmerston North pharmacist has pleaded guilty to 130 fraud charges involving almost $221,000 of taxpayers' money.
Former Cook Street Pharmacy owner Peter Chiew, 32, appeared in the Palmerston District Court over claiming for government subsidies for prescriptions that patients never picked up. Prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk told Judge Nevin Dawson the offending started on April 30, 2001.
But it was not until March last year that a division of the Ministry of Health began investigating Chiew and his claims.
Chiew had falsified the records of patients to show dispensing of repeat medicine when those medicines had not been dispensed.
The ministry tracked down 10,857 examples which had a total value of $220,994.20.
Chiew will be sentenced on October 24.
- NZPA
