Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called on federal law enforcement to step up the policing of counterfeit COVID-19 vaccine cards shipped from China.
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“Amidst the COVID crisis and successful efforts to get a free vaccine out to the masses, there is a new and unfortunate surge of counterfeit COVID vaccination cards being sold online and coming through the mail from overseas, and we have got to get ahead of this,” the New York Democrat said on Sunday.
The pressure to crack down on the illegal cards comes just days after a report that Customs and Border Protection intercepted a package of 51 “low quality, counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards” with blank spaces for people to forge their vaccine information, including the manufacturer and lot number of the shots, the place where they were administered, and when the person got them.
“I am urging a federal crackdown on these counterfeit COVID cards,” Schumer said. “The Department of Justice must ensure that fraud cases are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
CBP said this was not the first time it had discovered a suspicious shipment from the same location in China. To date, federal authorities in Memphis have caught more than 3,000 of these fraudulent cards sent from China for recipients all over the U.S.
“If you do not wish to receive a vaccine, that is your decision. But don’t order a counterfeit, waste my officer’s time, break the law, and misrepresent yourself,” said Michael Neipert, CBP’s area port director of Memphis.
The package, which arrived at the port of Memphis from Shenzhen, China, en route to New Orleans, contained cards that had several typos and incomplete words, as well as incorrectly translated Spanish on the backs of cards. Makers of the cards also counterfeited the logo for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the upper right corner of each one, a federal crime that would saddle the user with a financial penalty and up to five years’ prison time.
Policing the suspicious shipments from China, often listed in shipping manifests as “PAPER CARD, PAPER” and “Paper Greeting Cards/Use For-Greeting Card,” has diverted resources for intercepting packages of illicit drugs.
“CBP Officers at the Area Port of Memphis remain committed to stopping counterfeit smuggling and helping to protect our communities,” Neipert said. “But just know that when you order a fake vaxx card, you are using my officers’ time as they also seize fentanyl and methamphetamines.”
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Federal authorities announced the first federal criminal fraud prosecution involving a counterfeit COVID-19 vaccine card scheme last month with the arrest of Juli Mazi, 41, a homeopathic physician in Napa, California. She was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of false statements related to healthcare matters, according to the Department of Justice.
Mazi sold fake vaccine cards, including to parents in California who in some cases had already submitted the documents to their children’s schools. She also sold “immunization pellets” that she claimed contained trace amounts of the coronavirus, which would provide “lifelong immunity to COVID-19.” The recipients of the pellets, which were found to contain toxic ingredients, were told to mark their cards as having received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Mazi will face steep fines and up to 20 years in prison.
