‘There’s a lot of money in this business’: New investigation offers inside look at Russia’s black market for fake vaccination certificates

Russia's widespread vaccine hesitancy has given birth to a thriving black market for counterfeit documents proving "immunity" to COVID-19. Since the start of 2021, the Russian authorities have opened dozens of criminal cases over the falsification of vaccination certificates, medical disqualification certificates, PCR test results, and even QR-codes. The cybersecurity firm Group-IB even declared the sale of fake vaccination certificates "the most widespread form of online fraud" in Russia during the pandemic. On July 27, MBK Media published an investigation into how the black market for forged medical certificates works, revealing that the organizers behind these schemes are allegedly making millions of rubles (sometimes in a matter of days). Meduza summarizes the investigation's main findings here. Original Article: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/07/27/there-s-a-lot-of-money-in-this-business