Greece busts cancer drug theft gang, 21 arrests include doctors

Greece has broken up a criminal gang that stole cancer drugs from hospitals and smuggled them to other European countries for resale at a premium, potentially depriving patients of life-saving medicine, police said on Friday.

Twenty-one people aged between 22 and 70 have been arrested, among them doctors and nurses, according to the police.

They are suspected of using forged prescriptions to get hold of the drugs which they then sent to warehouses in Italy, Germany and Switzerland where they were sold at a big mark-up.

The nature of the crime suggested "particular contempt for society", police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos said. "They were guided by nothing but profit."

Most cancer drugs are available in Greece only through state hospitals because of their relatively high cost, and those are subsidized by the state.

The gang is...