Plovdiv court detains rheumatology chief in NHIF fraud case

The Plovdiv District Court has ordered the detention of Professor Mariela Geneva-Popova, head of the Rheumatology Clinic at UMBAL ‘St. George’, following an investigation into a large-scale scheme to defraud the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).

Prosecutor Dimitar Pehlivanov stated that Geneva-Popova made a confession regarding the mechanism used to generate revenue through fictitious hospitalizations. The scheme allegedly involved issuing over 5,000 fraudulent referrals. Adrian Belov, Geneva-Popova’s son-in-law and an accountant at her private medical center, was released on a 10,000 euro bail. Prosecutors identified Belov as the link between the private center and the hospital, responsible for entering the fraudulent data into the computer system.

A third suspect, an 82-year-old physician accused of facilitating the highest number of fake admissions, was released from custody due to severe health issues related to two oncological diseases. The court described the alleged activities as criminal and “extremely immoral.”