Martinelli’s surgeon accused of ripping off US vets program

The surgeon Walter Kravcio, whose attentions to Ricardo Martinelli have been used by the former president’s defense to try to obstruct the progress of his judicial processes, faces an investigation for the alleged commission of the crimes of qualified fraud and money laundering, to the detriment of the Treasury of the United States of America.

Kravcio, Javier Alvarado, also a neurosurgeon, and the lawyer Marianela Martínez de Alvarado were arrested last Wednesday and the events under investigation occurred between 2016 and 2021. The three were taken Thursday, handcuffed, to a hearing before a guarantee judge on Thursday.

During the hearing, it was reported that those investigated provided different medical care and other procedures in Panama to a group of military veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs (DAV), through the Foreign Medical Program (PME), managing a series of claims and using various schemes, such as charging for duplicate or unnecessary services or products through medical billing and false claims, some causing an injury exceeding $100,000,000

To carry out these “deceptions”, Kravcio and the Alvarado spouses would have used several companies, such as Paincare Inc., Hemodinámica de Colón, SA, Neurophys Inc., and Neuro Test Services Corp., to receive and transfer checks in the banking system.

The signatories and final beneficiaries of these accounts were the three detainees, so, according to the prosecution, they must have known that they were participating in an operation to cover up and disguise the illegitimate use of that money.

The investigation is carried out by the Second Prosecutor for Crimes against Organized Crime.

Kravcio and the Alvarados were arrested last Wednesday during police operations at their residences. The three live in the Fairway neighborhood of Santa María.

On June 22, 2021, when Martinelli had to go to trial for the unauthorized interception of communications in the last two years of his government, the defense appeared with a certificate from Kravcio indicating that the former president had undergone surgery two days before. He then explained that it was a “major spinal surgery” and that is why the defendant did not appear at the trial, for which the defense asked to reschedule it. It was postponed for a month.

Shortly before, Luis Eduardo Camacho, Martinelli’s spokesman, had tweeted a video of Martinelli, bedridden in a hospital, with Kravcio.