An underground business of making and selling fake covid passports is gaining momentum in Germany and other EU countries. As the newspaper Tageszeitung calculated after a survey of the criminal affairs departments of the F states, on New Year's Eve, German law enforcement officers are investigating more than 11 thousand cases of fraud with vaccination certificates. Bavaria alone accounts for 3,070 cases. And this is just a small fraction of the crimes that have been solved.
A group in one of the messengers, which has collected 73 thousand subscribers, openly offers a passport for vaccination without vaccination for 150 euros "with payment in cryptocurrency." On some online platforms the "price list" goes up to 350 euros. Digitization, that is, the actual legalization of paper forgeries in some "lured" pharmacies is more expensive. Fakes are thriving not only online. In Kassel, police seized 800 vaccination forms from a pub owner whose entrepreneurial spirit clearly went beyond catering. The landlord accidentally stumbled upon a stack of fake documents when he came to take readings for electricity. The Saarland police have removed from service a female officer who stamped and sold covid passports "with her lover." A 41-year-old man from Nuremberg and a 36-year-old resident of Memmingen were taken into custody: they both had whole lots of fake certificates with seals, signatures and holograms.
There is no information in the German media that anyone went to jail for forging a covid passport
At the same time, the German media have not yet reported on show trials against manufacturers and buyers of fake vaccination passports. "The politicians realized the scale of the problem too late: until the end of November, forgery of certificates was not punishable by law," TAZ notes. After amendments to the Criminal Code for the "commercial trade" of fake passports in Germany, you can get up to five years in prison. For presenting such a passport in a pharmacy in order to obtain an electronic certificate on its basis, a fine or imprisonment for two years is provided. But law enforcement officers prefer to conduct preventive campaigning for now.
In neighboring Austria, the harshest penalty for counterfeiting a Covid passport has been a € 1,600 fine. Although, in theory, you can get imprisoned for a year for such a thing, according to the ORF TV and radio company. However, the very fact of criminal proceedings is much more unpleasant. "The defendant is entered into the criminal record. Subsequently, this can negatively affect the search for work," the Salzburg prosecutor's office admits. Here's the Australian experience: The NSW government recently approved punishment for both making medical fakes and trying to use them to visit bars, clubs and other establishments. The prison term is very short - only six months. But the fine reaches 11 thousand euros.
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