the Blood obtained from the recovered victims of coronavirus, sold in “dark Internet” as an improvised vaccine Covid-19. And this is just one of hundreds of “products” which the criminals and fraudsters of all stripes are trying to use for profit in pandemic conditions.
the authors of the report of the Australian Institute of criminology made a shocking discovery just one day “trawling” in the depths of the “Darknet”, a segment of the Internet, which can only be accessed through certain browsers and not indexed by search engines. This segment is often used by criminals for the device online sales of illegal goods.
according to The Sun, offered for sale by the scams of fake drugs and coronavirus vaccines are sold at a price of 13 thousand pounds (16,2 thousand US dollars) – and that’s not counting a large number of put on sale of PPE (including N95 masks, surgical gloves and protective suits).
Drugs for the treatment of other diseases, also sold with false (or at least unproven) claims that they can help to fight the coronavirus, including antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.
645 sellers, convicted Australian Institute of criminology in the sale of fake products, 394 were located in the United States, 39 in the EU, 17 in the UK and three in China and Australia.
In the ads with questionable proposals are contained, for example, reports of “the delivery of vaccines against coronavirus during the night”, “the antidote for Covid-19 from China” and “vaccine against coronavirus with fast delivery”.
In another study, conducted by analysts of Ghost Data, it was discovered that more than 10,000 accounts in Instagram, many of them linked to China, sold the products associated with Covid-19.
Some of them had been sold fashionable items, such as sports shoes, and then suddenly switched to PPE and medical supplies to earn.
Scientists believe that a vaccine against the coronavirus will take months maybe even a year, so anyone who advertises it for sale via the Internet, it may be a fraud.
the Lead researcher of the Australian Institute of criminology, Rod Broadhurst says: “For some people, this pandemic has become a criminal the opportunity to capitalize on fear and lack. We found on the Darknet unsafe vaccine, multi-purpose antiviral drugs, which are in very short supply, and quite a lot of mass personal protection”.
“the Greatest danger harmful chemicals biosecurity, – quotes The Sun the Kind Brodhurst, because somes are sold as if they were leaks from the real test. But they can be fake, and we don’t know what they’re made of”.
Deputy Director of the Australian Institute of criminology Dr Rick Brau warns that the sale of such items poses a real risk to the health of people.
an earlier investigation of The Sun Online showed that more than 16 million domain names on the Internet related to mers was created to defraud unsuspecting consumers.
