The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Zagreb has opened an investigation against eight people, including the Minister of Health and the directors of two hospitals in Zagreb, as well as two companies on suspicion of accepting and giving bribes, abuse of position and authority and money laundering, the EPPO announced.

“It is alleged that, between June 2022 and November 2024, the presumed head of this criminal group teamed up with four other members of a criminal organisation to secure undue financial gains for two companies where they served as business managers.

Their goal was to ensure that one of the companies was allowed to sell medical robotic devices for several hospitals in Croatia. They are suspected of giving or promising monetary rewards to relevant stakeholders of the public health system in exchange for securing financing for the procurement of these devices at unreasonably inflated prices.

Manipulation of the public procurement process

They are also suspected of giving or promising rewards for the manipulation of the public procurement process in order to exclude market competition in favour of the targeted company, by creating technical documentation in which they incorporated requirements for the medical robotic devices that only that company could meet.

Other suspects offered and handed over bribes to several relevant stakeholders in the public health system, including the Minister of Health and the directors of two hospitals, to gain their support for different contracts for projects primarily in the framework of Croatia’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021 – 2026, financed by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), but also of other projects financed from the Croatian national budget.

It is alleged that the suspects, on at least four occasions, took actions to ensure that the suspected company could place the robotic devices. In the case of the Clinical Hospital Center in Split the project “Procurement of a system for robotic surgery”, with an estimated value of €4.85 million and fully financed by the RRF, was not awarded to the suspected company, despite the bribe offered to the responsible person within the hospital and the fact that the Minister of Health received the promise of a monetary reward in exchange for a favour to the suspected company.

The responsible person within this hospital refused the offered bribe and therefore, no undue financial gain was obtained to the detriment of the Union’s budget.

Bribed minister and hospital directors

In the other three cases, it was about the procurement of operating microscopes at the Clinical Hospital Center Osijek, the Clinic for Children’s Diseases Zagreb and the Clinical Hospital Center Sestre Milosrdnice. In all three cases, there are allegations that the Minister of Health, in exchange for a received bribe, issued approvals for the purchase of operating microscopes at unfounded increased prices, and provided funds for financing public procurement. The hospital directors, in exchange for the received bribe, prepared the procurement documentation based on the technical specifications of the products that in Croatia are only distributed by the suspected company.

Since the only bidder in this procurement procedure was the suspected company, the operating microscopes were purchased for a price that was unjustifiably increased by €619.582,64, to the detriment of the Croatian national budget.

To cover their traces, the members of the criminal association issued invoices with unreliable content on behalf of one of the suspected companies and thus created the appearance that the undue pecuniary gain was legitimately and legally transferred to the account of another suspect company.

All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in the competent Croatian courts”, says EPPO.