The Civil Guard is investigating in Lanzarote the alleged fraudulent sale of masks at abusive prices, after the Council of Pharmaceutical Associations of the Canary Islands warned of these events.
According to EFE, the president of this Council, Manuel Ángel Galván, informed the Government Delegation of the Canary Islands last weekend that in Lanzarote there were cases of fraudulent sale of masks for which up to 14 euros were being requested.
It was the pharmacists of Lanzarote themselves who informed the provincial College that there were people who were going through the pharmacy offices to hoard masks and disinfectant gels and, apparently, then reselling them in other types of establishments.
Ramos commented that the usual price of a simple mask, which are the surgical ones, ranges between 0.30 and 0.40 euros and that, according to the information that the colleagues from Lanzarote transferred to the College, they were being sold for 14 euros.
Sources from the Canarian Pharmaceutical Cooperative (Cofarca), the largest distributor in the province of Las Palmas, have told Efe that they lack stocks after the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.
This situation, which is extensible to all of Spain, has caused the emergence of a multitude of distributors that offer masks to pharmacies at "exorbitant" prices, between 3 and 4 euros, Ramos explained.
"Each office is free to acquire or not those products, but in the affirmative case the instruction is that they cannot be speculated with, although a different matter is that it rises as a consequence of the cost that is assumed", stressed the president of the Official College of Pharmacists of Las Palmas.
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