The police are investigating thousands of corona vaccine swindlers - but they also have to admit problems
Created: 12/26/2021, 7:01 PM
The police are currently tracking more than 10,000 cases of forged vaccination passports (symbol image).
© Photo booth / K. Schmitt / Imago
The falsified evidence costs between 50 and 350 euros and can be bought on Telegram, for example.
There are currently 11,000 cases, not including the number of unreported cases.
Berlin - Nationwide, according to a report, the police are now investigating more than 11,000 cases of forged vaccination passports.
The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office alone has had 3,070 cases since the beginning of the year - after 110 cases by the beginning of September, the
Berlin daily reported
on Sunday in advance, citing its own survey among the state criminal police offices.
At the same time, the police are assuming a high number of unreported cases.
Fake corona vaccination passports - high number of unreported cases likely
In North Rhine-Westphalia 2495 cases were counted, almost half of them since the end of November.
In Berlin there are 1028 cases, in Hesse and Baden-Württemberg each a number in the “lower four-digit range”, in Rhineland-Palatinate 727 and in Hamburg 720 cases.
Even in the poorly populated Schleswig-Holstein there are 550 cases - two thirds of them occurred in the past four weeks.
The Saxon State Criminal Police Office stated that there was a large number of unreported cases.
It is determined "consistently in every suspected case".
According to the newspaper, an internal situation report from the Federal Ministry of the Interior assumes that the demand for fake vaccination passports will "level off" due to the tightened corona measures.
Corona vaccination passports: "Easy to forge"
It is also acknowledged that the passports are “easy to forge” because they contain “no security features”.
Another problem is the “lack of test approaches” in order to discover forgeries when creating digital vaccination certificates.
For about a week now, pharmacies have been able to use a server to check whether the batch number given in the vaccination certificate has actually been issued and vaccinated.
The police can now also check batch numbers for authenticity on the internal Extrapol platform.
In the meantime, police forces are "specially trained to detect forgeries," said the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office.
According to the authorities there, cases of counterfeiting are now being determined centrally in a department in Saarland.
Corona: trade in vaccination passports on Telegram & Co.
Since the end of November, using a wrong vaccination certificate in a pharmacy, for example, has been threatened with a fine or up to two years' imprisonment.
There can be up to five years imprisonment for a “commercial” trade.
Many state criminal investigation offices recently ran warning campaigns with references to these penalties.
The Berlin State Criminal Police Office pointed out to the
taz
that the forgeries were not only offered for sale on Telegram, but also on WhatsApp or Ebay classifieds - at prices between 50 and 350 euros.
Digital evidence is more expensive than the yellow paper vaccination books.
(AFP / frs)
