Covid-19: 182,000 fake health passes generated according to the Interior Ministry


The police have unearthed a total of 182,000 fake health passes since the establishment of the device this summer, as part of 400 investigations, according to a new report drawn up on Monday by the Ministry of the Interior. The previous figure given by Beauvau on Friday reported 110,000 fake health passes in circulation.

The Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin had, according to his entourage, last week instructed the directors general of the police and the gendarmerie to step up checks. Thursday, he announced the arrest of a hundred people, both users and trafficking networks, said his entourage.

Two million euros in profits for a fake pass network

On Friday, AFP learned from a source close to the matter of the dismantling, at the beginning of December, of a network which made it possible to create between 5,000 and 10,000 false health passes for a profit of around two million euros. According to the first elements of the investigation, the counterfeiters recovered the identifiers of pharmacists on the website of the National Order of Pharmacists.

Faced with the proliferation of fake health passes, the police and gendarmerie have stepped up their digital investigations and listed other operating methods, including the purchase of fake vaccination certificates on the internet and the fraudulent use of a QR code assigned to a third party . The authorities also track down health professionals or administrative agents who provide false passes.

Faced with the fifth wave of Covid-19 and the arrival of the Omicron variant in France, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced several new measures on Friday, including the transformation of the health pass into a vaccine pass. The government hopes for its adoption at the end of January for entry into force immediately. Concretely, to enter places subject to this pass (restaurants, places of culture, recreation, etc.), a negative test will no longer suffice: it will necessarily be necessary to have been vaccinated (or cured of the Covid) and to have received a dose of reminder.



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