The number of corona infections is increasing rapidly, the intensive care units are getting fuller, and more and more federal states are therefore switching to the 2-G rule.

This brings especially the notorious vaccination refusals into distress.

They are largely excluded from public life through stricter measures - and they are increasingly buying it back from the Internet with a forged vaccination card.

The number of offenses recorded in connection with forged vaccination passports has risen in the last few days and weeks in the two most populous federal states, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, in some cases rapidly.

This was confirmed by the respective interior ministry or the state criminal investigation office of the FAZ on Friday.

David Lindenfeld

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“The numbers have skyrocketed. And we are assuming that they will skyrocket even further because the stricter access rules now apply here in Bavaria, ”said a spokesman for the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, for Sport and Integration on request. The 2-G rule largely applies in the Free State. In the meantime, 800 cases have been registered there that are related to forged vaccination passports. At the beginning of September there were 110. In addition, there would be 260 cases with falsified corona test evidence, it said from the official side.

A spokesman for the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia announced that he could not give any precise information. However, a number in the middle three-digit range can be assumed. In general, there was a “further increase” in police operations because there is suspicion that a forged vaccination card was presented, the spokesman said. The states of Berlin, Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg left a request from the FAZ unanswered. But even there, the problem is likely to assume similar proportions.

Investigative authorities also assume that there are many undiscovered cases. "The number of unreported cases can be assessed as very high," said a spokesman for the Hessian LKA. And: "We have seen an increase in cases since the first introduction of the 3-G rule." In Hesse, cases in the lower three-digit range have so far been registered. The LKA wants to subject this year's case numbers to a validity check at the end of the year and publish them in the police crime statistics in the following year.

In many places, stronger controls are now being discussed. In Bavaria, too, they want to expand it in restaurants, hairdressing salons and discotheques in the future and check the vaccination records of visitors for fakes. "We hope that we can clear up the number of unreported cases," said the spokesman for the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. If controls are too lax, there should be tough sanctions in the Free State: “In the event of a recurrence, if it turns out a second or third time that an operator is not carrying out the controls seriously and simply waves people through, he must expect his shop to be closed will “, said the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann on Friday the Bavarian radio.

These controls are to be carried out by the district administrative authorities and the police. "Of course, if necessary, the police and regulatory authorities will enforce the rules that have been enacted by politicians in a democratically legitimized way," said the chairman of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, to the editorial network Germany on Wednesday. However, it is more difficult to control whether people are vaccinated or not have recovered or have been vaccinated, recovered or tested, for example to control exit restrictions. "Often it will only be random checks that the police can do," said Wendt. Thousands of other police officers would then be less able to perform other tasks.

The fight against forged vaccination passports is currently made even more difficult by the fact that it is not clearly regulated who is liable to prosecution when using a forged copy. At the beginning of November, the Osnabrück Regional Court recognized a "criminal liability loophole" and decided in a ruling that someone who presents a forged vaccination card in a pharmacy is not liable to prosecution under the current legal situation, because presenting a falsified health certificate is only punishable by authorities or insurance companies stands - and not in private companies such as pharmacies or restaurants.

The public prosecutor's offices in Lower Saxony and other courts assessed the legal situation differently.

The Federal Ministry of Justice received a lot of criticism because of the “criminal liability loophole”.

The traffic light parties want to eliminate this legal uncertainty: their draft law for the Infection Protection Act stipulates that the forgery of vaccination passports and the use of forged vaccination passports should be punishable by forgery of documents and can be punished with up to five years imprisonment.