Fake vaccine passports are changing hands on messaging app Telegram for up to $240 with online sellers even accepting PayPal transactions.
Experts say the forged documents are easily obtained and are seeing a boom in demand as Covid-19 vaccinations create new-found freedom for people who have had a shot.
Miro Dittrich, who investigated fake passport sales in Germany, told The National that the market had moved from the dark web to the more mainstream Telegram and grown beyond its initial base of conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists.
“The issue of how one can get a vaccination pass without getting vaccinated is getting more and more popular,” said Mr Dittrich, a researcher at the Centre for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy in Berlin.
“We can clearly see that these groups are growing pretty quickly, and there’s a huge interest and there’s a lot of transactions.”
Online sellers offer different ways of transferring the money, including PayPal and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
One seller’s cryptocurrency wallet had nearly $17,000 paid into it, although it was not clear how much of this was from vaccine passports.
The sellers are easy to find with a simple search on Telegram, Mr Dittrich said.
Mr Dittrich and a colleague at Cemas, Pia Lamberty, found new Telegram channels appearing frequently on which fake vaccination passports were on sale.
For a typical fee of about $12, buyers could get instructions on how to produce a forgery and a sticker that forms part of the genuine article.
A full certificate usually costs between $120 and $240, the researchers found, with stamps purporting to come from German cities such as Berlin, Munich or Cologne.
In Germany, which has yet to introduce a digital vaccine pass, buyers are sent a physical copy of their forged certificate.
Under new rules introduced by the German government this month, a genuine certificate grants exemptions from certain lockdown restrictions such as curfews.
One proposal for a digital system is that pharmacies should check people’s hard-copy certificates and enter their details into a database.
Mr Dittrich warned of potential vulnerabilities with this system. “I don’t think a pharmacy can evaluate if a fake vaccination passport is authentic or not,” he said.
Criminals and conspiracy theorists behind fake passports
Meanwhile, some of the channels appeared to be scams and there were some unhappy buyers who never received their fake documents.
Some of the sellers also used Telegram channels to distribute illegal goods, such as weapons or drugs.
“Most of the offers that we see there are clearly done by criminals, who use the same methods to sell other illegal things, and it’s highly professional,” Mr Dittrich said.
“But we also see a lot of ideological people selling vaccination passports because they think vaccinations are evil and they are going to kill you.”
The pandemic contributed to a general increase in the number of conspiracy theorists on sites such as Telegram and Facebook, researchers said.
Discussions about fake vaccination passports were detected on Telegram last year, before any of the Covid-19 vaccines had even been introduced.
Some sellers can be identified by authorities. In Berlin last month, three men were arrested for allegedly trying to sell fake passes to plain clothes police officers.
The men allegedly had a supply of fake certificates that they had acquired on a messaging app, with some being offered for sale and others stashed in a car.
Speaking this week, Germany’s Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht issued a warning to people trying to use fake certificates.
“I can only give an emphatic warning against forging vaccine certificates, or procuring and using fake certificates showing vaccination, test results or recovery,” she said.
“This is not a trivial offence but a serious crime.”
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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- At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people
- Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed
- Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest
- He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
The chef's advice
Troy Payne, head chef at Abu Dhabi’s newest healthy eatery Sanderson’s in Al Seef Resort & Spa, says singles need to change their mindset about how they approach the supermarket.
“They feel like they can’t buy one cucumber,” he says. “But I can walk into a shop – I feed two people at home – and I’ll walk into a shop and I buy one cucumber, I’ll buy one onion.”
Mr Payne asks for the sticker to be placed directly on each item, rather than face the temptation of filling one of the two-kilogram capacity plastic bags on offer.
The chef also advises singletons not get too hung up on “organic”, particularly high-priced varieties that have been flown in from far-flung locales. Local produce is often grown sustainably, and far cheaper, he says.
