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Former Order of Canada recipient Dr. Ranjit Kumar Chandra fleeced OHIP for more than $2 million through a false billings scheme in which he paid patients and others for their health card numbers, a college prosecutor alleged Wednesday.

Dr. Chandra, 79, is in ailing health and living in India and will no longer practise in Ontario. He’s denying the allegations of professional misconduct as he’s being tried in absentia at a College of Physicians and Surgeons disciplinary hearing.

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College prosecutor Elisabeth Widner said Chandra would approach patients and offer them cash in exchange for their OHIP card numbers and others.

“He would write them cheques from his business account and in some cases, gave them cash,” said Widner in her opening statement.

The scam was perpetrated from 2012 and into the early months of 2016 and involved hundreds of patients.

Chandra would pay his “leaders” extra money. “Leaders” were the patients who would recruit “extras” – people such as family members and friends – to provide their OHIP card numbers and information for regular, bogus billings.