Two Luton men sentenced for selling fake Covid vaccination records online

Waqas Hanif and Touqir Nasir created over 2,000 fraudulent Covid jab records at a Luton health centre and sold them via Telegram. Hanif received three years in prison.

Luton pair convicted over 2,000 fake Covid vaccine records sold via Telegram

Two men from Luton who manufactured and sold fraudulent Covid-19 vaccination records during the pandemic have been sentenced at Luton Crown Court, the National Crime Agency reports.

Waqas Hanif, 28, was sentenced to three years in prison on 3 September. Touqir Nasir, 31, received a ten-month suspended sentence of one year, along with a six-month curfew. Both men pleaded guilty to offences under the Fraud Act; Hanif additionally admitted charges under the Computer Misuse Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA).

NCA and NHS England joint investigation

The case emerged from a joint investigation by the National Crime Agency and NHS England Counter Fraud Team. According to Google News UK — Crime (en), the inquiry centred on the Kingsway Health Centre in Luton, where Hanif was employed as a vaccination programme care co-ordinator. Between June and October 2021, more than 2,000 fraudulent vaccination records were created at that facility.

Hanif had site administrator rights to Pinnacle, the NHS system used to generate and log vaccination records. A total of 2,663 suspicious entries were linked to the health centre, of which 1,875 were traced to five IP addresses connected to Hanif's home address.

£136,000 in cash seized from safe deposit box

NCA officers arrested Hanif in January 2022. At his home they found his NHS ID card, £7,000 in cash, NHS documents, and an application form for the Luton Safe Deposit Centre. Examination of the facility's CCTV showed Hanif accessing a safe deposit box on multiple occasions. The box — the largest available at the centre — had been rented on 14 August 2021, during the period when suspicious records were being generated.

A subsequent search of the deposit box led to the seizure of £136,405 in cash. Hanif's fingerprints were found on a number of the banknotes.

Around 250 images were recovered from Hanif's mobile phone containing personal details — names and addresses — of approximately 340 patients.

Clients charged £80 to £150 per pair of vaccine doses

Unvaccinated individuals obtained the fraudulent records through social media platforms, including Telegram. Hanif charged clients between £80 and £150 per two 'doses' of vaccine. During interview with NCA investigators, he admitted creating the false records but claimed he did so under duress from local criminals who had paid for the certificates.

Investigators suspect organised criminals recruited, or worked in partnership with, non-clinical staff to produce the documentation. The fraudulent records allowed unvaccinated individuals to circumvent pandemic restrictions — including those governing travel and large gatherings — that others were required to observe.

Nasir opened bank account under assumed identity

Nasir attended a voluntary interview with investigators in March 2023. Enquiries established that he had opened a bank account during the relevant period under the name Adam Parker, an identity he had adopted by deed poll. More than £56,000 was deposited into that account, predominantly in small amounts of between £100 and £400, suspected to represent payments for fraudulent records.

Reviews of NHS systems confirmed that some individuals whose names appeared on the bank statements had had false vaccine records generated in their names. Bank records also showed a transfer of £1,000 from Nasir to Hanif, which Hanif indicated during interview was payment for records that Nasir had created.

Nasir pleaded guilty to a Fraud Act offence on 4 December 2025 and to a POCA offence on 26 February this year. His basis of plea was subject to a Newton Hearing on 3 June.

NCA: 'Cynical abuse of our healthcare system'

Paul Foster, Deputy Director and Head of the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit, said the men 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: "Although receiving the vaccine is a matter of personal choice, such exploitation of our healthcare system to allow unvaccinated individuals to bypass restrictions that are in place to protect the British public is illegal."

He said the investigation had helped "prevent organised criminals from further undermining the national pandemic response and benefitting financially from the damaging service they provided."

Source: Google News UK — Crime (en)