Pharmaceutical companies are among those deliberately defrauding healthcare systems throughout Europe, a conference in London heard this week.

More than 150 delegates from 20 of the 25 European Union states attended the two day event looking at fraud and corruption across the European healthcare system. Although delegates considered everything from health tourism (where individuals from one country go to another to receive free or cheap health care) to how to identify fraud, a recurring concern was the blatant fraud by some drug companies.

“In any country, pharmaceutical fraud is a big problem,” said Marieke Koken-Vossestein, head of the department of claim control at the Zorgverzekeraars Nederland (a Dutch department …