Related to our long running collection of Identity Document costs, Europol alerts that PCR tests are being sold by opportunistic crims:
Several cases have already emerged of fraudulent COVID-19 test certificates being sold to travellers:
- A forgery ring selling negative test results to passengers was dismantled at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France;
- In the UK, fraudsters were caught selling bogus COVID-19 documents for GBP 100;
- In December 2020, a fraudster was apprehended by the Spanish National Police for selling fake test results for EUR 40.
Separately, Zerohedge reports:
For instance, police arrested one suspect at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for selling fake test results for up to 300 euros apiece. There have been similar busts in Spain, Netherlands, and at Luton Airport near London.Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported that popular messaging apps, including WhatsApp and Snapchat, are seeing the increased activity of criminal organizations selling fake PCR test certificates, along with forged signatures of real doctors. The tests sell for around 50 euros, compared with an official test that costs about 150 euros.
Seems like around 100, but too early to tell an average from these few data points.
What is perhaps interesting is that the PCR certificates for travel purposes I have seen were sent by email as a PDF, and non-travel PCRs by SMS. Which makes for a pretty easy target in today's printer and graphical manipulation tools. Perhaps they need to move to online checking - make the test available to border medical checkers to confirm with a QR code or something.
Posted by iang at February 3, 2021 10:06 AM