An Illinois woman nearly got away with using a fake vaccination card during her trip to Oahu, Hawaii, but it was a misspelling that foiled her plan.
On the fraudulent card used by Chloe Mrozak, 24, to bypass the state's mandatory 10-day quarantine for unvaccinated visitors, the word Moderna appears as "Maderna."
Mrozak produced the card upon arrival on Aug. 23 and was able to depart before authorities realized it was fake.
According to Hawaii News Now, the card claimed members of the National Guard administered the shot in Delaware, but there was no trace of her vaccination when authorities checked her medical records. Mrozak also falsely listed a hotel as her accommodation for the trip, making it impossible for authorities to locate her until her return to the airport to depart from her vacation.
Upon her arrest on Saturday, Mrozak claimed she had received the vaccination card upon paying for the vaccine administered by her doctor. Mrozak was charged for falsifying vaccination documents and her bail was set at $2,000.
This is not an isolated incident. The black market for fake vaccination cards is flourishing. Across the world people are using these cards, which are easily purchased online, to get around restrictions related to vaccination status.
"It's a dire problem, and it's only increasing," said Ekram Ahmed, a spokesman for Check Point Software Technologies, a cybersecurity company based in California and Israel, according to U.S. News.
Earlier this year Check Point noted that vaccine passport certificates could be purchased on the dark web for around $250. However, fake cards can now also be obtained through messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp for anywhere between $100 and $120. Travelers are also using fake negative COVID test results to move around.
Commenting on the situation, Ahmed said that, with more vaccine mandates being "just around the corner," the situation will only worsen.
"The more pressure that people feel in terms of taking the vaccine, the more the black market, I expect, to proliferate and transact at a higher volume," he said. "And so it's sort of like there's this seesaw effect kind of going on … I just expect the problem to get worse."
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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