More than 3,500 people who obtained a vaccine certificate showing they’d been inoculated against Covid-19 never actually set foot in the vaccine center that purportedly gave them a jab.
Romanian prosecutors said Thursday they had detained a medical assistant and two others for bribery on Thursday in connection with the largest Covid-19 vaccine fraud operation in the EU member state.
The anti-corruption prosecutors’ office said they were suspicious about more than half the vaccine certificates issued from Vama Petea in northwest Romania from early September to early November.
People paid between 250 and 300 euros for the counterfeit documents, prosecutors said.
The healthcare assistant was detained for 24 hours on suspicion of being an accomplice to repeated bribery, false statements and IT fraud. She is an employee of the Satu Mare health department. Two other individuals were taken into custody on the same charges.
Earlier this month, two nurses and two healthcare workers were detained in the same case.
Prosecutors said suspects used the “vaccine in the sink” method to issue certificates to people who didn’t get a jab. A health official pretends to inject the vaccine which is then throw away.
Prosecutors said the three suspects acted as intermediaries between medical assistants and registrars where the vaccine passes were issued.
The phony vaccine certificates were issued from September 8 to November 2, prosecutors said.
In that period, 5,495 people were vaccinated. More than 3,500 never actually went to the vaccine center where they were purportedly given an anti-Covid-19 shot.
Romania and Bulgaria have reported cases of vaccine certificate forgery, in countries where there is entrenched vaccine skepticism as well as endemic corruption in the healthcare systems.
