EU says it expects Russia to investigate trade in COVID certificates

Falsification of documents, whether it be Russian QR codes or EU digital COVID certificates, is prohibited and entails penalties provided for by national legislation, the European Union takes all reports of possible fraud very seriously, RBC said at the EU Delegation to Russia, commenting on the message “Laboratory Kaspersky about the appearance of offers from scammers to sell European electronic certificates of vaccination against CORONAVIRUS on shady sites on the darknet.

“The European Union will continue to follow this issue closely and appropriate action will be taken if necessary. If fraud is suspected, the EU expects countries where this occurs, including Russia, to take steps to investigate and respond to these suspicions.

Earlier, Kaspersky Lab said that the average cost of such a document on the darknet is $300, sometimes scammers indicate that they accept payment in cryptocurrency. Announcements are found in Russian and English. They say that the data of the client who bought the certificate is entered into the database, after which he is assigned a unique QR code. The client is offered to choose the country of vaccination and the drug: ASTRAZENECA, Pfizer / BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson or Moderna. The document, according to scammers, is issued by one of the countries of Eastern Europe. The sellers promise to send a certificate in the format of an electronic document with a QR code and all the data. They assure that its authenticity can be verified in special applications such as CovPass, CovidCheck, Corona Warn and others.

The system of digital certificates was launched in the countries of the European Union on July 1: they can be used to certify the fact of receiving a vaccination, a negative test for a coronavirus infection, or that the owner has recently had it. The certificate allows you to travel between countries that recognize its validity, without additional checks.

In the European Union, the use of counterfeit certificates is punishable by a fine (which varies by country) to a prison term of up to six years for "fraud" and "forgery" depending on the severity of the crime. In the event that a person with a fake certificate infects someone with a fatal coronavirus, this can also be classified as causing death by negligence.