Forgery and setup. How the Counterfeit COVID Certificate Network Works

Novye Izvestia conducted an experiment with the purchase of a false certificate and learned how this black market functions.

Yulia Suntsova

In just a quarter of an hour, Novye Izvestia alone on Telegram and Instagram easily found a dozen offers for the sale of certificates.

Black traders form their USP, manipulating the fear of people to get complications after vaccination, and not even an hour and die from this "poison".

“Now our state is actively trying to vaccinate people, gives money for this, raffles off expensive prizes. Vaccination is free, so they also give something for it. Most people do not want to be vaccinated, because they understand that this is sheer nonsense and they just want to kill people, ”the author of one of these Instagram accounts formulates the“ problem ”.

Of course, further describes the "way out" of this nasty situation in which we all found ourselves: "Go wherever you want, for ridiculous money, and do not poison your body with this vaccine, after which every third person gets sick with complications."

Below are samples of "products" - ready-made "fake" documents ordered by someone. Assortment: vaccination certificate, COVID-19 vaccination certificate, PCR test. And, as it should be according to the laws of marketing, an encouraging caption under the photos: " Everything you need for happiness and a free life."

The performers promise to make a certificate in 1-2 days and deliver it via Yandex Go.

Special correspondent "NI" contacted several black certificate sellers on social networks, posing as a buyer.

The operator of the Telegram account DN [we will not give the full name so as not to advertise illegal services] promises to upload the original certificate to the personal account on State Services. He asks for 8 thousand rubles for his service. Outside St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region - 3 thousand more.

Non-cash settlements and only through Sberbank, or through the proposed "guarantor services" - secure payment systems.

The paper is promised to be made in up to 3 days.

The seller assures that the QR code on the certificate cannot be non-working, because the certificate will be prepared by a real doctor who will enter the vaccination data into the register of his medical organization, from where they will be transferred to their personal account on State Services. There it is proposed to download the finished version.

When asked whether the certificate will turn out to be just a piece of paper that is not quoted anywhere, he answers confidently:

“You download it from the site itself, it cannot be just a piece of paper. Doctors download, and it is displayed on your Public Services. But I understand your concerns, of course, in terms of payment”, - the interlocutor replies.

To be more convincing, he suggests following the link to the page with reviews. But no reviews, neither positive nor negative, were found there, instead of them - advertising of hotels, air tickets abroad and watches.

To complete the transaction, the operator asks to provide personal data and copies of documents according to the list:

“Full name, date of birth, passport - main page and registration, SNILS, address of the place of work, name of organization, position, photocopy of the medical policy and its number, phone number. All this data I need for vaccination. Request to throw off in this form, " - specifies the dealer.

On Instagram, at the moment, they ask for an average of 10-15 thousand rubles for a vaccination certificate.

- Selling?

- For sale.

- There is a possibility.

This is how the dialogue with the Instagram merchants begins. The interlocutors do not even specify what kind of product they are talking about. No so-called guarantees are given out on this social network: "In this case, everything is on trust," they answer the question of how the client can be sure that they will not be thrown.

On Instagram, fake documents are often traded by schoolchildren and students - ideal "material" for operatives. Often they don't even hide behind anonymous accounts, they reveal all the details of a fake transaction from a half-turn, and their friends in subscribers can easily identify them. Payment in the form of an online transfer to a Sberbank card also does not look like a reliable encryption.

Traders from social networks in most cases do not come into contact with the papers themselves, with fake certificates. With global digitalization, the necessary documents appear in personal accounts, as it were, in a magical way. This factor, apparently, spurs young people, gives them the illusion that we are not doing anything so bad, illegal ... Few of these children seriously think about the legal consequences and, judging by the rhetoric, not particularly who are aware of such funny activities as test purchases.

In Russia, the acquisition, storage and use of deliberately forged documents that grant rights or exempt from obligations, in accordance with Art. 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are punishable by imprisonment (restriction) of freedom, forced labor for a term, depending on the severity of the offense.

A criminal record, by the way, threatens not only the organizers and sellers of false certificates, but also the buyers. It does not matter whether the person used the rights that the forged document gave him or did not have time to do so. It is enough for law enforcement officers to record the fact of buying a false document or presenting it.

In Moscow, they are launching raids on offices where signals about falsification of covid certificates were sent.

Given the importance for the state of everything related to vaccines and vaccinations, law enforcement agencies will be strenuously required to disclose and prevent such crimes.

On Tuesday evening, the press service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs published on its website a video of searches from a "transshipment point" in Moscow, where fake certificates were issued.

First, at one of the capital's houses, operatives detain a courier - an employee of the network delivery service and ask him to open an unremarkable envelope. It does not say in large letters (and in small ones too): FAKE CERTIFICATE OF VACCINATION AGAINST COVID-19. I would like to hope that the police will not collect statistics on conscientious migrants from Central Asia working in Yandex-delivery.

The second detained courier is a student, as he himself says, who came to study in Moscow in April this year. When detained on the street, the young man says that he does not know what is in the envelope. However, after some time in the department, he says something completely different to the camera:

“I understood that these were fake certificates, as I was present when they were filled out. Filled in by Vladimir. I agreed to this job only because I had financial difficulties. " According to the student, he took over from April 27, 2021.

Through the chain, couriers identified a 19-year-old young man who handed fake certificates to couriers in sealed envelopes with addresses.

A 23-year-old manufacturer of forged certificates was later arrested. “It turned out that the attacker filled out the blank forms he had with his own hand and affixed seals and stamps of various medical institutions to them, ” the press service said.

The video footage shows that the forms, for example, of the Medical Certificate of Health, belong to the State Budgetary Healthcare Institution “Psychiatric Hospital No. 14, Moscow Department of Health, Branch No. 1 - Neuropsychiatric Dispensary No. 10 (Petra Romanova St., 2).

In addition to the "blue certificates" themselves, from the arrested office on Electrodnaya Street, operatives take out forms of certificates, blank samples of documents, more than 60 seals of medical organizations, stamps with the names of the vaccine.

The OMVD of Russia in the Ramenki district of Moscow initiated three criminal cases under part 1 of Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The suspects have been detained.

A serious problem is that often Internet traders and detained couriers are very young guys, schoolchildren, students. And they are not the top of the web.

It is quite obvious that this cannot be done without the participation of adults. Adults are introducing themselves and doing tricks with the State Services website. The option, when a client downloads a vaccination certificate from the State Services website, means that there is a health worker in business. It is he who receives the ampoule, pours it out and enters false data into the registries. Offices are also not rented by children. And from the boxes with dozens of seals and mountains of forms with the requisites of medical institutions of the Moscow Department of Health, in fact, emanates from malfeasance.

Fraudsters do not mind letting bibabo teenagers into the expense. And then the fishers of criminals do not mind making figures on their arrests. But is it worth carrying out dubious experiments on oneself - every person suffering from a phony certificate decides for himself. Our opinion: NOT RECOMMENDED!