Italian Scammers Sold Fake COVID-19 Passports On Telegram For Crypto

Italian scammers sold fake COVID-19 passports on Telegram for crypto but the police blocked the illegal activity of the fraudsters as we are reading more about it in our latest coronavirus news.

The Italian authorities shut down 32 Telegram groups that offered fake COVID-19 passes to thousands of people as the criminals preferred crypto payments for the illegal services. As per the recent report by Reuters, the Italian police halted the operation of a few groups on the online messaging app Telegram so the Italian scammers offered fake COVID-19 health passes to the people that want to bypass the law and get the certificates in exchange for crypto. The so-called Green Pass will allow Italians that already recieved at least one coronavirus vaccine shot or recovered from the virus or even tested negative.

The criminals didn’t have a fixed price for the illicit service but one can buy it for 500 EUR or $588 but the Italian officials didn’t disclose what type of digital assets the scammers accepted. Italy has been one of the worst affected countries by COVID and even though 130,000 people passed away from the virus, most residents still remain hesitant to get the vaccine. As per the information, around 20 million people downloaded the Green Pass but whether the certificates belong to people who have actually acquired them or have been a part of crypto fraud remains unclear.

This is not the first time that scammers tried to sell fake coronavirus certificates in exchange for crypto assets. Some users on the notorious Darkweb were offering vaccination passports and stolen doses of COVID-19 vaccines with the most desirable cryptos for the criminals were BTC, LTC, ETH, and Monero. The blockchain analytics company Coinfirm explained that the fraudsters choose the payment method because of the anonymity and popularity that crypto provides.

The scam was so widespread besides the popular vaccines like AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson but also one can purchase the Russian product Sputnik V. most of the criminals offering these services were based in the Russian Federation or the USA while the Easter Europeans were the only ones that purchased the falsified passports.