Vaccines: the European Anti-Fraud Office sounds the alarm
The European Anti-Fraud Office is sounding the alarm.
Fraudsters offer to sell large quantities of vaccines to national governments, deliver a sample to them to pocket the first advance, then disappear with the money.
(Illustrative photo) AFP - JUSTIN TALLIS
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Likely consequence of the delay that accumulates in vaccination campaigns: alleged intermediaries are offering fraudulent vaccines against Covic-19 to European countries.
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With our correspondent in Brussels
,
Joana Hostein
The European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) is sounding the alarm.
Fraudsters offer to sell large quantities of vaccines to national governments, deliver them a sample in order to pocket the first advance, then disappear with the money, explains the general manager of Olaf.
The vaccines provided by these ill-intentioned intermediaries are often fake, he says.
Olaf therefore opened an investigation and communicated some figures.
Around 900 million doses were thus proposed for a total amount of around 13 billion euros.
The President of the European Commission, for her part, called on governments to be careful.
There is no guarantee that the cold chain will be respected when procuring vaccines on the black market.
The Czech Prime Minister had said he had been offered vaccines by a broker based in Dubai.
According to the New York Times, offers were also made to the German, Greek and Finnish authorities.
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