Coronavirus: How the black market of Covid certificates works

The first tourist who came to our country this year for vacation and was hospitalized in an Intensive Care Unit with coronavirus, was a 65-year-old Russian. He arrived in Greece on May 29 with a negative PCR test of 72 hours, as provided by the current legislation, however the fact that he showed symptoms on the same day of his arrival and ended up hospitalized three twenty-four hours later in “Papanikolaou”, caused questions from the beginning as PCR show false negative findings such as self tests. It was obvious that he had crossed the border with a fake molecular test certificate, and the fact that his family had fallen ill a little earlier also contributed to this.

Europol is sounding the alarm

The “black market” of Covid certificates is unfortunately in jeopardy and for this reason Europol constantly warns the security authorities of all countries to be very careful in the controls since not only fake PCR tests are also widely circulated, but also disease certificates or vaccination. According to information in neighboring Albania, there are a number of fake opinions that are obtained by citizens who try to cross the border stations of our country.

13% of the tests in Kakavia came out positive, despite the documents

In the constant controls carried out at the customs station of Kakavia 13% of the tests that were performed before were positive, despite the fact that the papers that the visitors had with them stated that they were negative in Covid-19. Obviously all of them could not have been negative when they started from home and became infected within a few hours of reaching the border.

There is a whole factory that issues negative tests for a fee in order to… facilitate those who want to enter our country, which means that in this way another outbreak of infection is created in Northern Greece.

Certificates without barcode in Albania

The problem with test in Albania is that they are performed only in three hospitals and diagnostic centers located mostly in Tirana and only one of them has the barcode identification code in the relevant certifications.

Considering that in the neighboring country of about 2.9 million citizens, 133,000 cases and 2,460 deaths have been recorded, while it belongs to the countries that do the least testing, along with Nepal, Namibia and Libya.

They were passing through illegally covid documents in Britain, France, Spain

Counterfeit documents for Covid 19 are also circulating in the United Kingdom, with police arresting ringleaders who were selling them for ίνες 100 each. At the same time, irregular coronavirus papers are being found in Spain and France, where travelers wanted to pass through Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, but were found. They later revealed that they had purchased them for 40 euros each.

In Germany, they communicated with the experts via a mobile app

Respectively, arrests of circuits that took advantage of the situation in the same way, took place in Berlin, where the perpetrators even communicated with interested parties through mobile phone applications that encrypted the messages and sold the forged documents for 100 euros each. In countries like Germany, the certificates they are not yet digital, as for example in Greece, with the result that irregularities become easier.

The situation on the dark web is out of control

However, the situation on the so-called dark web is uncontrollable, the “dark internet” as translated into Greek, where the interested party can even find vaccines. First of all, let us clarify in a few simple words what the dark web is. This is the anonymous web site, to which shadow users have access to hidden services. It consists of the so-called dark networks or darknet (usually overlapping networks), which are not detected by search lists such as e.g. of Google.

Email extensions do not end in .com, .gr, etc., but in .onion so that the location of each domain remains hidden. They are accessed with specific software and permissions, using protocols and ports found in non-standard communications. In other words, not everyone can access it by simply entering an Internet address. But if he knows how to get into it, he can find it selling everything from guns and drugs to yachts and human organs.

“It’s our job, we did it again and everything went well”

At the moment, on the “dark internet”, certificates of vaccination and coronavirus disease are circulated uncontrollably in any language desired by the visitor, with payments for their supply being made almost exclusively and only with cryptocurrencies (bitcoin).

Executives at US-Israeli Check Point Software, one of the largest multinational software companies active in cybersecurity, contacted Darknet vendors to find out as much as possible about the delivery, price and authenticity of vaccination and disease certificates. Asked about the necessary doctor’s signature on each certificate, the seller assured them that “they have done it many times in the past and have never encountered a problem”.

All they have to do is ask the potential customers to provide their exact details on the document and the dates they want to be listed, for $ 200. As the trader told one of the researchers, “you do not need to worry; it’s our job, we have done it again and everything went well.” In fact, the unknown merchant tried to beat the competition by making an offer. “If you buy three certificates, we will give you a quarter as a gift.” Something about your pizzas. It may sound funny, but it is perceived as particularly dangerous as public health is at stake.

They even sell vaccines on the dark web

And because the dark web follows the trends of the world market, on the altar of profit and does not let opportunities go to waste. Check Point executives have spotted widespread vaccine trafficking on the dark internet, which is hard to find in developing countries such as Africa, despite the fact that a pandemic is plaguing (and) the continent. Initially, only the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine and the Chinese Sinovac were available on the dark internet, but now AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson vaccines are also available, and smaller quantities of Pfizer are even more expensive.

At what price did the sale of vaccines start and where does it range today?

Prices at the beginning of the year reached $ 1,000 per installment, but now that there are larger quantities around the world, the law of market and demand is applied with prices falling to $ 500 and in some cases to $ 200 or more. below. However, it is questionable how these vaccines have left the drugstores – although in some cases it is doubtful whether they are genuine. “From the photos they seem to be legal, but no one can guarantee it,” the researchers point out. Last April, Pfizer identified fake vaccines in Mexico and Poland, where the alleged doses allegedly contained anti-wrinkle treatment. In fact, about 80 people were vaccinated with the drug at a clinic in Mexico, paying around $ 1,000 for each dose, according to the Wall Street Journal.

They do not wait for you to discover them, they find you

Online marketers are not waiting for you to discover them, but they are finding you. In what way; Sending thousands of emails to potential victims promising certificates, faster access to vaccinations and any other coronavirus-related service. Hidden behind the anonymity of the dark internet and servers that are difficult to locate, they are not afraid that some authority may discover them. Alisverisi is impressive. The Reuters news agency found on a dark web site someone claiming to be working at the Yuhan Chinese Scientific Institute and offering vaccines against Covid-19 in exchange for donations, while asking buyers to give him their medical history.

They gave the world dangerous imitations of vaccines

In March, Interpol reported that South African authorities had confiscated hundreds of fake coronavirus vaccines. In a warehouse in the town of Germiston, with a population of 255,000, 2,400 doses of an imitation pandemic vaccine were found that would cause significant health problems to those given. In the same month, China arrested 80 suspects and confiscated more than 3,000 fake vaccines. Fortunately, there have been no such incidents in Greece.

Since February, however, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been talking about fraud and the illegal sale of vaccines, stressing that in times of crisis there are some who will try to take advantage of the situation, adding that it is very dangerous for citizens to buy vaccines in Buy.