Ruminations: COVID-19 False Certification Profiteers

"The detection of fake COVID-19 negative test certificates confirms that criminals -- be it organized crime groups or individual opportunistic scammers -- seize profitable opportunities once they arise."
"As long as travel restrictions remain in place due to the COVID-19 situation, it is highly likely that production and sales of fake test certificates will prevail."
"Given the widespread technological means available, in the form of high-quality printers and different software, fraudsters are able to produce high-quality counterfeit forged or fake documents."
Europol intelligence alert

Reuters

The European Union's law enforcement agency Europol recently stated that criminals are well prepared to take advantage of any opportunities presenting during this period of global pandemic destabilization to exact profit wherever they can. And one opportunity in particular has motivated people who excel in defrauding others in the complexity of their schemes to take advantage of people's willingness to deal with them is the sale of negative test certificates.

In Britain's London Luton Airport, north of London where flights take off to cities in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, a number of those destination sites require travellers to have on hand proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test to enable entry. At the airport on January 22 a man was taken under arrest for suspected fraud by false representation. Warwickshire authorities in Britain just before Christmas announced that scammers offered fake COVID-19 tests on sale for the equivalent of $175 for a bogus certificate of negative results.

Europol Photograph:( Reuters )

This was a fairly sophisticated gambit, using the name of a genuine testing laboratory on the certificate. In Spain a woman was arrested when she sold false negative COVID-19 test certificates over the Internet, offered for $62. Clients, she boasted in her advertisements had successfully used her issue of certificates in their travels abroad. The name of a legitimate laboratory located in Madrid was used, leading the laboratory to complain to Policia Nacional, a federal police force in Spain. Arrested for crimes against public health, fraud and forgery and investigators began to rack down her customers.

Scammers in the Netherlands were caught selling fake test certificates priced between $75 to $100 through the social platforms WhatsApp and Snapchat, issuing fake certificates in the names of real doctors and real laboratories, with no COVID-19 tests having been carried through. Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport, the second-busiest airport in Europe, was the site of the largest known suspected forgery ring, .

When a passenger checked in for a flight from the Paris airport to catch a flight to Ethiopia, he was discovered using a fake certificate that declared he was clear of COVID-19. On that occasion seven people were arrested; six men, one woman, for selling certification for prices ranging from the equivalent of roughly $230 to $465. All six were charged with forgery, use of forgery and complicity in fraud.

The Europol alert was issued two days ago for the purpose of raising awareness of the schemes and to encourage member agencies to alert their counterparts to the presence of other activities related to fake COVID testing documentation.