Several countries in Europe suffered

Criminals in organized crime in Romania have sold hundreds of thousands of respiratory and oral protections with suspected false and irrelevant certificates to the country's authorities.

It shows a review done by SVT's partners OCCRP and Rise Romania.

Reporters pretended to be buyers and were offered masks by convicted and suspected criminals.

In Belgium, 11.7 million of the 20 million respiratory protection ordered by central authorities did not live up to the safety requirements, says the government to SVT's partner, the newspaper De Tijd. Even worse, it was with protection that the hospitals ordered: There, only 15 percent of them met.

Of all offers of respiratory and oral protection to central authorities, 90 percent have been about invalid products.

In Lithuania, a hospital received 3,000 untested and substandard respiratory protection with false CE marking. The owner of the company that exported them is a man who is wanted in China.

The same respiratory protection was also sold to Portugal, Estonia and Malta. The European Commission is now warning the model.

At the end of April, a man in the Netherlands was arrested on suspicion of selling at least 15,000 poor respiratory protection.

The masks ended up in health care facilities. The man bought the guards from China and had forged certificates that they would protect against corona, according to the Dutch Eco-Crime Authority.