Eight prison officers and two doctors are under criminal investigation following findings that sick leave certificates had been issued without corresponding records in Gesy.

The case centres on suspected collusion between medical staff and prison personnel aimed at defrauding the state through falsified medical leave.

Investigators are examining a multitude of sick leave certificates issued to prison officers to determine whether the leave granted was genuinely justified.

Evidence gathered with the assistance of the audit office has raised suspicions of coordination between two doctors, a pathologist and an orthopaedic doctor, and eight prison officers who allegedly benefited from such an arrangement.

Among those under scrutiny are officers who, according to the findings, attended work for only two to three weeks a year in some recent periods while continuing to draw their full salaries.

One officer was absent on sick leave for 205 working days in 2023 and a further 202 working days in 2024.

To support the absences, he submitted 51 medical certificates in 2023 and 60 in 2024, of which only six were not issued by the two doctors now under investigation.

The case follows testimony given by an audit office official to police investigators, during which the two doctors and eight officers were identified.

A special report on the prison department dated March 10, 2026 first raised suspicions that the individuals may have acted together to defraud the state.

To verify whether the certificates corresponded to genuine consultations, the office requested data from the health insurance organisation (HIO) and compared it against entries in Gesy.

The comparison revealed significant discrepancies, for four of the eight officers, the pathologist is listed in the system as their registered personal doctor, yet a substantial number of certificates he issued had no matching consultation record.

For the remaining four officers, the doctor was not their registered physician at all, though he issued them numerous certificates without any corresponding consultation appearing in the system.

A similar pattern emerged with the orthopaedic doctor, as five of the eight officers submitted certificates from both doctors, with many of the orthopaedic doctor’s certificates also lacking supporting records.

The most striking case involved an officer who submitted 54 medical certificates to support sick leave claims, yet only six consultations were recorded in the system, and of those, only three appeared to align with the certificates based on dates and diagnoses.

The audit office also found instances where consultation dates did not match the sick leave periods claimed.

In some cases, consultations were logged in the system on dates after the corresponding certificate had already been issued.

Investigators are also questioning the content of several certificates.

Findings show that certificates issued by the pathologist frequently cited orthopaedic conditions, including osteoarthritis, sprains, knee injuries and neck pain.

The reverse pattern was also identified, with the orthopaedic docor issuing a certificate citing a “migraine” as the diagnosis.

On the finding that the orthopaedic doctor had issued a certificate citing migraine as the diagnosis, the medical association has said a doctor holding a valid licence to practise may, in certain circumstances, examine a patient and issue a certificate outside their own specialty, and that this alone did not in itself establish wrongdoing.