264,100 lei and 1,650 euros seized from a 28-year-old 'doctor' with no medical degree: three years of consultations at a Bragadiru clinic in Ilfov, Romania

Romania's College of Physicians keeps the public register of doctors, and nobody who is not on it may lawfully consult, diagnose or treat patients. Yet in Ilfov County, which surrounds Bucharest, police say a 28-year-old man performed medical acts at a clinic for three years before the authorities caught up with him.

According to Digi24, citing News.ro on 23 October 2026, and to a statement by the Ilfov County Police Inspectorate reported the same day by Jurnalul and Adevărul, investigators found that over the previous three years a 28-year-old man from Bucharest had performed medical acts without holding the status of doctor, at a business premises in the town of Bragadiru. News.ro's report, as its headline put it, described musculoskeletal ultrasound examinations, medical examinations and the setting of diagnoses. On Thursday 22 October officers of the county's Economic Crime Investigation Service searched two addresses, one in Bucharest and one in Bragadiru, and seized 264,100 lei and 1,650 euros suspected to be proceeds of the activity. Representatives of the Ilfov Public Health Directorate took part in the searches and suspended the company's activity at the clinic, and the National Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices was to decide what happens to the medical equipment used.

Jurnalul reported that a criminal file was opened for exercising a profession without the right to do so, under the supervision of the prosecutor's office attached to the Cornetu court, and that the man was taken to the economic-crime service for questioning. Its headline spoke of hundreds of patients, though its text said dozens of people had been misled. Adevărul wrote that the investigation continues in order to identify anyone harmed. The case was also reported in Hungarian by Bihari Napló on 24 October. No charge had been announced and the police did not name the man, so he is not named here.

The shape of the case is familiar. A company, a consulting room with medical equipment and a confident young man in a white coat were enough for patients to pay for three years. Jurnalul's headline labelled him "the new Matteo Politi of Ilfov", a comparison with an earlier Romanian case that the paper did not explain, and Adevărul linked to other recent fake-doctor stories, including a former beauty queen who nearly lost her teeth after treatment by a fake dentist at a Bucharest clinic. Nothing in the police statement suggests anyone had checked the "doctor" against the College of Physicians' free online register, and the clinic traded until the public health directorate suspended it after the searches.

For patients, including the many foreign students who use private clinics around Bucharest, ask for the doctor's full name and search it in the College of Physicians register before paying; a name that is not there is not a doctor, whatever the clinic's paperwork says. For medical students tempted to "practise" before graduating, the Romanian offence brings a criminal file, seized earnings and a closed clinic.