Since Thursday, a new function has also been available to pharmacies in the Munich district to make it easier to identify forged vaccination passports. The software, which is supposed to compare batch numbers of vaccines and to recognize their validity, is one of the few concrete advances in the fight against the flourishing market with vaccination certificate flowers. The innovation is just right: both pharmacists and the police are currently seeing a significant increase in attempts at deception. At the same time, manual controls are becoming increasingly difficult – because pharmacists simply don’t have the time to make phone calls to doctors’ practices or vaccination centers.
Ulrike Bigott, owner of the pharmacy on Kirchplatz in Oberhaching, explains her situation: “It is difficult at the moment because of the booster vaccinations. We issue 100 to 150 vaccination certificates every day. With this amount you can not always look as closely as you might need I had one of those cases yesterday where I hesitated at first. ” Take a closer look – until recently that was the only way to tell the difference between a fake vaccination certificate and a real one. Is the document new or old? Are there pre-entries or not? Even the spelling and the quality of the stamp can be used as evidence of a forgery. A misspelled word does not mean anything in individual cases. But if these features appear in combination, it looks suspicious. “For us, however, it is still relatively transparent,” says Bigott, “because people get vaccinated at the local doctor’s offices and we can easily check whether they are genuine.”
The pharmacist only remembers one case at the beginning of the vaccination campaign that she reported. The doctor’s practice in which the vaccination was allegedly carried out was in Frankfurt. That made her suspicious. “They then confirmed to us that there had already been several cases. There was probably a forged stamp in circulation.” The person in question, according to Bigott, was known – “someone from the middle of society who also has a representative function”.
Martina Haasemann from the St. Korbinians pharmacy in Unterschleißheim reports six cases in the past week alone. Here, too, one pays attention to local deviations: “If the person was allegedly vaccinated in Düsseldorf, but wants the certificate here, then that is noticeable at first,” says Haasemann. According to her, another clue for a fake is the so-called vaccination pass assembly: If the outer shell does not match the inner shell. Haasemann adds: “If you ask people how they tolerated the vaccination, then you can usually tell whether everything is going well.” She calls the new system for checking lot numbers a “valuable tool”. She has not yet reported the attempted fraud, but the issuance of the certificate is refused in suspected cases. “Most of the time they don’t come back either.”
Katrin Thon, owner of the Löwen pharmacy in Graefelfing, also became suspicious of a different address. “In one case, the vaccination site was in Berlin, but the place of residence was here.” If there is a concrete suspicion, as a pharmacist, she is required to report the case to the police, which she did. However, this is the only concrete suspicion that she had.
30 vaccination cards in the trunk
So how many confirmed cases are there in the county? The police cannot give exact dates. The problem also lies in the nature of the offense: While the falsification of vaccination certificates was not even expressly prohibited until recently, it is now fed into the system as a forgery of documents. The numbers are mixed up with those of forged passports, ID cards and driver’s licenses. Police spokesman Peter Werthmann emphasizes, however, that there has been a significant increase in cases: “Our colleagues are currently being overrun when it comes to reports.”
Ottobrunn’s police chief Armin Ganserer is registering an increasing number of calls from pharmacies.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
And Armin Ganserer, head of the Ottobrunn police station, confirms an increase in reports. “Lately we have been receiving more and more calls from pharmacies that people are trying to get digital certificates issued with forged vaccination cards,” says Ganserer.
Stefan Schraut, head of the Oberschleissheim police station, reports on a remarkable find. During a traffic check, he says, 30 vaccination cards were found in the trunk of an automobile. “It will certainly not be his own,” says Schraut. The pharmacies in the area of operation are advised to contact the police without hesitation in the event of suspected cases. All in all, however, it is still a sporadic occurrence. How the numbers develop will also depend on political events. In the case of the introduction of a general compulsory vaccination, Schraut fears a further increase in the number of falsified vaccination records.