In front of the screen, a dozen photos in garish colors parade. “Boat license, 300 euros”, promises an announcement in fluorescent blue letters. “Auto/motorcycle code, 400 euros,” reads another, a montage of road signs and a high-end car in the background. “Credit or housing file, 250 euros”, offers a final offer. In the Telegram loop joined anonymously by L’Express, the seller summarizes, message after message, the list of false papers that he can send to his customers in a few days. And among them, new offers have crept in. “Sanitary pass, PCR test”, offers the forger, with a lot of emojis and capital letters. “Registered on Ameli and on Tous AntiCovid, always available, take advantage of it”, he hammers to his potential buyers, before sending them to a private loop, in order to process “any request” in “express” .
To access these illegal sales on encrypted messaging, nothing could be simpler. On Twitter, a multitude of accounts under pseudonyms offer Internet users to join them on Snapchat or Telegram via a QR code or a direct link, in order to buy fake vaccine passes and negative PCR tests. On the antivax Facebook groups, the addresses of these accounts are even exchanged in comments, while the Instagram stories of anonymous users are full of proposals for falsified documents. In a few clicks, and with the right keywords, a whole world of false papers opens up to any Internet user. “How soon would it be possible to receive a health pass?”, we ask by private messages to one of these sellers on Telegram. Two hours later, the answer falls. “Less than 24 hours”, promises our interlocutor. “If you make me the payment now, you may have it during the day, maximum tomorrow morning,” he adds.
As in the market, the negotiation begins. 150 euros for a complete vaccination pass, single price. The document will be “official and registered on Ameli”, and can even be sent to us in PDF. “Of course, you can scan it in All AntiCovid and you can do everything with it, it’s the real thing, official”, is it specified. The counterfeiter is even able to announce the type of vaccine virtually received: it will be Pfizer. The exchange stops there, but other groups are contacted. “You can have it in 12 hours”, guarantees us one of them, offering “à la carte” documents. 80 euros for an additional booster dose, 150 euros for the complete vaccination pass. “I need your last name, first name, social security number”, we are asked. Hesitation. “Are you no longer interested?”, Quickly relaunches the seller who, after discussion, accepts a proposal for two passes at 200 euros, guaranteeing that they can be scanned in the Tous Anticovid application and will allow “to go everywhere” . The transaction will never take place. But for some buyers, less scrupulous and really interested, the exchange is as easy as for an online food delivery or a purchase of furniture between individuals.
False passes “on every street corner”
“I didn’t want to be vaccinated, so I found other solutions”, testifies Théo*, catering employee on the Côte d’Azur. Infected by Covid-19 last summer, the young man is experiencing a few months of respite, using his positive test, equivalent to a dose of vaccine, as a health pass. But in October, and with the approach of the winter season, he realizes that the document will not be valid for very long, and could well jeopardize his contract. “So I went to see my doctor, with whom I get on well, to ask him if he could get me a fake pass in exchange for a certain amount of money,” says Theo, without the slightest regret. The man refuses, but tells him the contact of a colleague, a few kilometers away, who would agree to provide him with the document. Issued by a health professional, the latter would be valid in the eyes of Social Security and the Tous AntiCovid application … but without any real sting. For three days, the young man goes daily to the office indicated, but each time finds the door closed. A week later, he discovered in the local press that the practitioner had been unmasked by the police, and that a preliminary investigation had been opened for suspicion of health pass fraud. “She had been grilled, so I looked elsewhere,” sums up Theo.
The waiter then contacted a restaurant friend in Marseilles, who told him that he could find fake passes “at every street corner”. Théo is quickly put in contact with a seller, to whom he sends his surname, first name, date of birth, address and social security number. For 350 euros, initially requested by PayPal and then finally paid in cash, the young man receives a valid health pass a few days later, “which works every time”. “I don’t know if he hacked into a doctor’s account or if he himself had contacts with caregivers, but the QR code is valid”, assures Théo who, a few weeks later, calls his contact again. . “I needed the third dose, and he could send it to me. I repaid 140 euros, and I received the QR code on WhatsApp two days later”, explains the server, who can now take the transport, going to the cinema or going to the restaurant “without any problem”… And without being vaccinated. The client assures him: around him, “many colleagues and friends” have opted for a false document. Some of his relatives, equipped with falsified passes, even managed to travel to Dubai or Saint-Barthélémy. “And they crossed borders and controls like everyone else, without ever being arrested,” he concludes.
“Crime of Opportunity”
To counter the circulation of these false documents, the production of which could well intensify with the establishment, this Monday, of the famous vaccination pass, the police are increasing the investigations. “This is a subject that mobilizes many investigators, almost everywhere in our services: within the national police, the national gendarmerie, the judicial police, in Paris or in the regions… We work in a very synchronized on the subject”, assures L’Express Thomas de Ricolfis, director of the Sub-directorate for the fight against financial crime within the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police. According to him, the profiles of sellers are multiple. Some health professionals or employees of unscrupulous vaccination centers, first, who act individually to generate true / false passes. Hackers, then, having recovered the identifiers of the famous computerized health professional card (e-CPS) of caregivers, in order to access their online account. “In these cases, the documents are false / true, which do not actually correspond to any injection. There is a QR code, but there was no injection”, specifies Thomas de Ricolfis.
“There are then small groups of more or less organized individuals, who are used to setting up online fraud or scams, and who have found a new market in the health pass”, explains the specialist, even qualifying these acts of “crime of opportunity”. Here again, forgers can have access to the accounts of certain caregivers, by relational network or by hacking, but can also create “bogus” documents. “Everyone does it for the money, and you have all the price scales”, testifies Thomas de Ricolfis, who claims to have seen offers ranging on average from 100 to 600 euros, sometimes even reaching a thousand euros.
Nearly 200,000 false passes
To dismantle the business of these sellers, the specialist ensures that his teams rely mainly on alerts from health professionals who have noticed attempts to hack into their accounts and on complaints from the CPAM, while maintaining an active watch. on social networks. “But for the moment, we are not facing a wave of creation of false documents”, he wishes to qualify. “We will see how the situation develops in the coming weeks.” According to the latest report from the Ministry of the Interior, 192,483 falsified documents had been discovered as of December 30, 2021 – against 182,000 ten days earlier. To date, 435 investigations have also been opened by the courts, said Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on January 4th.
And counterfeiters risk a lot. According to Thomas de Ricolfis, law 2021-1465 of November 10, 2021 thus reinforces the penalties in the event of health pass fraud, ranging from a minimum fine of 135 euros for the loan of a health pass to 5 years’ imprisonment and 75,000 euros fine for the use, establishment and sale of a false pass, in particular on social networks. The bill on the vaccine pass, adopted on January 16 by the Parliament, also provides for a fine of 1000 euros for presentation of a pass belonging to others, use or possession of a fake. The fact of fraudulently introducing data into an automated processing system may, on the other hand, be punished by five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros. “It is also good to remember that you should never give your identity or your social security number to a third party, because this information can be used to make other false documents”, concludes Thomas de Ricolfis.