When a global pandemic hits, there’s no rule book for how to navigate the path forward. Chaos forces agencies to scramble, hastily-assembled programs are prone to vulnerabilities that can be taken advantage of by scofflaws. A recent CNBC article discussed several cases in which doctors, nurses, and medical business executives exploited the pandemic climate for financial gain. This involves the sale of fake vaccination cards, bogus coronavirus cures, and theft from federally funded pandemic assistance programs.
In California, two owners of a clinical laboratory were charged with a healthcare fraud, kickback and laundering scheme that brought in over $214 million. A Colorado resident was accused of using blank COVID-19 vaccination cards to forge and sell hundreds of fake vaccine cards in at least a dozen states, including three Olympians and their coach. A New Jersey USPS employee is charged with printing fake vaccine cards while at work and selling them to more than 400 people. The list goes on and on, but the anecdotes all end the same way: justice being served.
