Willing to do anything to avoid vaccination. A 56-year-old doctor was taken into custody on Tuesday, a police source said. The latter is suspected of having sold at least 220 fake health passes. His alleged accomplices, as well as around 20 buyers, were also taken into police custody.
The man who runs a cabinet in the small town of Joinville-Le-Pont in Val-de-Marne, south-east of Paris, is said to have sold these documents for 1,000 euros each. During the search of his office, investigators seized, among other things, fake PCR passes and tests.
“They paid exorbitant prices to go on vacation”
The doctor was arrested in Seine-Saint-Denis, where he lives. Investigators seized his flag “valued at 600,000 euros”, as well as “fifteen bank accounts for several thousand euros”. Investigators suspect the doctor of Social Security fraud. At least three departments – Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris and Val-de-Marne – would be victims.
His alleged accomplices, a 53-year-old woman and a 49-year-old man, were also arrested, respectively in Val-de-Marne and in Brittany, then placed in police custody. The twenty or so clients in police custody, all of them over 18, would not be particularly opposed to vaccination. It is “the summer period” which would have motivated their fraudulent purchases: “Some countries asked for a complete vaccination cycle and they paid exorbitant prices to go on vacation”, advance the police source.
A Snapchat account offering fake tests and passes
These falsification cases linked to the Covid-19 pandemic often involve “people employed in vaccination centers (…), cyber-attackers who use the doctor’s code to make false passes”, but rarely “a doctor who begins to cash in, ”comments the police source.
In July, investigators from the Territorial Security of Val-de-Marne were alerted to the existence of a Snapchat account offering fake PCR tests and fake health passes. Their investigations “showed that the patients never came to the office”.