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The scammers wanted to sell 400 million doses of the COVID vaccine, worth about 3 billion euros, to some member countries of the European Union, revealed two European officials, according to Reuters, taken over by Agerpres. European officials are illustrating how criminals are trying to profit from the vaccine crisis.
Two European Commission officials have estimated that scammers have offered around 400 million doses of “phantom” vaccines at a price of up to 3 billion euros.
“It just came to our knowledge then. No one has any idea what is actually in these bottles … In the best situation this just doesn’t work, and in the worst case it is a very serious problem,” said one of the EU officials.
The official, who noted that most of the doses offered to EU governments were so-called AstraZeneca vaccines, compared the situation to the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, when criminals took advantage of the shortage of masks and other protective equipment.
A second official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the EU executive was concerned about “ghost” vaccines.
“It is not known if these are authentic vaccine doses or if they are salt water in small ampoules,” added the EU official.
The European Union has already warned that vaccine fraud is on the rise, with fake doses of vaccine circulating on the market, but the scale of the problem was unknown until now, Reuters says.
EU leaders will discuss on Thursday how they can protect their 450 million citizens from the newer and most contagious strains of coronavirus, ensure stable vaccine deliveries, increase production, and modify vaccines to counter new variants.
Publisher: BP
