U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working at the Port of Anchorage seized over 3,000 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards arriving from China this week.
The cards closely resemble the authentic Center for Disease Control certificates provided by healthcare practitioners when administering the Covid-19 vaccine. The cards are arriving from the same place the virus arrived from: China, specifically Shenzhen, China, which is about 550 miles from Wuhan Province, where the virus originated.
Shipments of these fake vaccine cards have shown up in cities across the country, especially where there are shipping hubs. The manifests for these cards will say things like, “PAPER CARD, PAPER,” Customs agents in other ports of entry noted the cards had typos, unfinished words, and some of the Spanish words on the back that were misspelled.
But INTERPOL, the international police coordination organization, is warning of something more ominous: Fake vaccines.
INTERPOL issued a global alert on Aug. 16, saying that organized crime groups are attempting to defraud governments and individuals with fake offers to sell Covid-19 vaccines.
The warning follows 60 cases in 40 countries where individuals in health ministries and hospitals have received offers for Covid-19 vaccines approved for distribution in their country.
The offers come from people claiming to represent a vaccine manufacturer or a government agency facilitating the distribution of vaccines, the scammers are targeting both professional and personal email accounts of potential buyers, as well as making contact via phone.
The INTERPOL alert, issued to all 194 member countries, is based on information provided by vaccine manufacturers and highlights the types of modus operandi used in the attempted scams, including the use of fake social media accounts and websites.
Issued under the umbrella of the INTERPOL Global Financial Crime Task Force, the alert is the most recent in a series of warnings issued in relation to Covid-related crime threats.
Criminals have exploited every stage of the pandemic, INTERPOL said, from creating websites and social media accounts claiming to sell protective equipment and medical supplies, to the manufacture and distribution of fake vaccines, ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure, and fake vaccine passports or vaccine cards.
The latest alert follows the joint INTERPOL and the United States’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) warning to the public against purchasing alleged COVID-19 vaccines and treatments online earlier this year.
