Two Luton men jailed for £136k fake Covid vaccine record fraud

Two men from Luton have been sentenced after selling 2,000 fraudulent Covid-19 vaccination records online for up to £150 each.

Fake jab certificates sold online as NHS system was exploited

Two men from Luton have been sentenced for selling 2,000 counterfeit Covid-19 vaccination records to people who had not received the jab, bbc.com reports.

Waqas Hanif, 28, of Sherwood Road, and Touqir Nasir, 31, of Runley Road, created fraudulent documents at Kingsway Health Centre, where Hanif held a role in the vaccination programme, and sold them through social media platforms.

A joint investigation by the NHS and the National Crime Agency (NCA) led to their arrest and the seizure of £136,000 from a safety deposit box rented by Hanif. The pair admitted fraud-related charges at Luton Crown Court on Thursday.

Hanif was jailed for three years. Nasir received a 10-month sentence, suspended for one year, along with a six-month curfew.

Investigators established that Hanif had administrator access to the NHS vaccination recording system between June and October 2021, during which he charged unvaccinated individuals between £80 and £150 for records showing two doses. Of 2,663 suspicious entries linked to Kingsway Health Centre, 1,875 originated from IP addresses connected to Hanif's home address. More than £56,000 was also deposited into an account belonging to Nasir during the same period.

Both men were convicted of conspiracy to cause a computer to perform a function with intent to commit an offence, conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, and possession of criminal property.

NCA deputy director Paul Foster said the pair had "cynically abused our healthcare system for financial gain, at a time when the country was going through the turmoil and pain of the Covid-19 pandemic." Foster added that exploiting the healthcare system to allow unvaccinated individuals to bypass public health restrictions "is illegal."

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)