Fake Covid-19 vaccine cards NRW police investigate more than 100 cases of counterfeit vaccine booklets

Düsseldorf · According to the State Criminal Police Office, more than 100 cases involving forged immunization booklets are currently being investigated in North Rhine-Westphalia. Counterfeit vaccine stickers were found in Duisburg.

 A German vaccination booklet.

A German vaccination booklet.

Foto: dpa/Sophia Kembowski

Authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia are investigating more than 100 cases of forged vaccination booklets. So far, the number of reported cases for the period from April to September is in the "lower three-digit range," said a spokesman for the State Criminal Police Office (LKA). The corresponding LKA statistics are updated daily, he added. But it was unclear whether there was an upward trend.

In Cologne, police set up a special investigation unit for fake vaccination cards in May this year. Since then, officers have been active in more than 40 cases, a police spokesman reported. In about half of them, the suspects have been identified. The public prosecutor's office is now investigating the extent to which criminal offenses have been committed.

This week, officers in NRW caught people again and again with the fake yellow booklets. During an apartment search of a 26-year-old man in Duisburg, police came upon a two-digit number of them, according to a police spokesman. The young man had also produced a batch of labels of the Covid vaccine. He did not want to comment on the forgery accusations against him.

Police in Wipperfürth in the Oberberg district also found two fake vaccination certificates in a couple's apartment, which officers then seized. The 37-year-old man and the 39-year-old woman listed a vaccination center in the booklet, but it had never immunized them, police said. In Iserlohn, an unvaccinated woman tried to have a digital vaccination certificate issued at a pharmacy with a false batch number at the beginning of the week.

According to the LKA, it is difficult to forensically check vaccination booklets because they have no "authenticity features" as do other official documents.

Orig. text: dpa/lnw

Translation: ck

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