Blood Banks' Managers Smuggle 9000 Blood Bags to Tunisia, Morocco

Platoon of research and investigation of the judicial police opened investigations into the cell that includes nurses, doctors and officials who stole more than 9000 blood bags from the blood banks in a number of Algerian hospitals, and smuggled them to neighboring countries like Tunisia and Morocco, in return for cash.

The case which is under investigation by the security authorities is based on information indicating that an international cell, that includes Algerians and foreigners, is specialized in smuggling and theft of medicines, vaccines and bags of blood from the Algerian hospitals and smuggled them to Tunisia and Morocco.

Three people were then arrested in Algiers and they recognized their activity within the big band that is made up of nurses, doctors and officials in a number of the capital’s hospitals, and other individuals who stole vaccines and blood bags, from hospitals outside the capital, like those that are scattered across the provinces of Boumerdes, Tipaza, Blida, Bouira and Medea, before transferring them to the Algerian western and eastern borders for sale.

Investigations in the scandal showed that over 9050 blood bags with one liter or 500 ml of blood were smuggled, and more than 5000 bags of “O+” typing, which is the most demanded blood group, because it can be granted to all persons with various blood typing.

Investigations in this scandal continue after the extension of jurisdiction which was signed by the public prosecutor of the Court of jurisdiction, while the scandal of smuggling more than 7000 blood bags to the neighboring countries in less than one year only, came after the investigations that were carried out by police services on the order of the Minister of Health and Population, Abdelmalek Boudiaf in 2015, following another smuggling operation of thousands of bags of blood, vaccines and medicines to Morocco and Tunisia, by the managers of “blood banks” across hospitals, during the last 3 years, with the complicity of a number of direct officials for keeping, storing and supplying surgical departments of the bank blood and a number of doctors and nurses.