While the health situation is deteriorating day by day, health pass fraud continues to grow… Faced with the proliferation of false certificates, digital investigations are strengthening in France.

"There have been more than a hundred arrests, which target both users and trafficking networks, on the 400 investigations that have started to be opened," said Thursday on France 2 Gerald Darmanin.

According to the entourage of the Minister of the Interior, nearly 110,000 fake health passes have circulated in France since the establishment of the device in the summer.

For its part, the Health Insurance, which launched disputes against 800 people, last week had 41,000 false passes.

Several operating modes listed

Different operating modes were identified by the investigators, including the purchase of false vaccination certificates on the Internet and the fraudulent use of a QR code assigned to a third party.

The authorities also track down health professionals or administrative agents who provide false passes.

"We are seeing a sharp increase in this phenomenon from this summer on social networks but no resurgence since the non-reimbursement of tests for the unvaccinated", says General Marc Boget, commander of the gendarmerie in cyberspace, in charge of 200 false pass investigations and which identified around 92,000 in circulation.

In conjunction with the investigators, the Health Insurance is responsible in particular for identifying anomalies via its statistical analysis techniques in the vaccination monitoring database, using

data mining

(searching and cross-checking of different databases) and artificial intelligence.

"An organized crime network"

"We are witnessing an increasingly elaborate modus operandi where crooks remotely modify the passwords of health professionals and can thus generate passes in their names", explains General Boget, who is investigating in connection with the Office. Central for the fight against damage to the environment and public health (OCLAESP).

These networks are akin to "organized crime with touts, accomplices, dealers, multi-card delinquents who exploit the will of some not to be vaccinated", according to the general.

Large cyber investigations underway

Several “large” cyber investigations are being carried out against hacking into the accounts of doctors and pharmacists, according to the entourage of the Minister of the Interior.

A network that collected the identifiers of pharmacists on the website of the National Order of Pharmacists was able to sell between 5,000 and 10,000 false passes for a profit of around two million euros.

Some health professionals are also directly involved.

In Hérault, cyber-investigators arrested a firefighter and a physiotherapist, who will be tried in February for having provided 123 false negative antigenic tests to thirty of their relatives.

In Val-de-Marne, a doctor suspected of having sold at least 220 fake health passes - at 1,000 euros each - was also remanded in custody at the end of November, according to the Créteil prosecutor's office.

Using a false document is an offense that leads to a penalty of up to three years' imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros.

The disciplinary proceedings of the orders can go up to the definitive prohibition to exercise, according to the Health insurance.

By the Web

Adolf Hitler, SpongeBob… Internet users had fun creating fake health passes via a security breach

Health

Health pass: 110,000 fake currently in circulation according to the Ministry of the Interior

  • By the Web

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  • Covid 19

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  • Cybercriminality

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