March 13, 2013
SAO PAULO (AFP) - This gives new meaning to punching in at work: doctors at a Brazilian hospital covered for absentee colleagues by using fake silicone fingers with their prints to fool biometric machines.
Globo television showed footage of a doctor touching her finger to the device, then using two fake digits to do the same for colleagues, and taking delivery of slips of paper indicating they had in fact clocked in to work.
That way it looked like there were doctors on duty when there was just one.
It had happened at Ferraz de Vasconcelos, in Greater Sao Paulo.
The woman told police six other doctors were in on the scam.
"She says she was innocent because it is a condition they imposed on her to keep her job," her lawyer, Celestino Gomes Antunes.
Another television network said it was the head of the emergency room that ran the scam and that his daughter had not worked a day in three years but got paid all the time.
So far five doctors have been suspended as part of the investigation.
The mayor of Ferraz de Vasconcelos, Acir Fillo, said there might be as many as 300 hospital employees who do not exist, except for fake fingers with their prints, but who get paid anyway.
