Experts identify a number of Bitcoin addresses whose owners are selling counterfeit COVID certificates

Advertisements for the sale of counterfeit COVID certificates, stolen vaccines and forged doctor signatures for cryptocurrency have spread widely on the dark web. This is reported in a Coinfirm report.

Payments for the goods are most commonly made in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, Tron, Monero and Zcash. Analysts explained their choice of these coins by their popularity and anonymity.

One of the shops is selling wholesale batches of AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BionTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and ‘Sputnik V’. According to Coinfirm’s analysis, those behind it are involved in a number of other fraudulent activities.

Researchers have identified the Bitcoin wallet Bitcoin wallet. It is part of a cluster of 145 addresses into which funds flow from mixers, sellers of stolen or cloned credit cards, drug traffickers and operators of double-spend attacks on the Bitcoin network.

Several darknet shops in Russia, the United States and other countries sell certificates of vaccination against COVID-19. The sellers claim they can input their customers’ data into national vaccination registries, in some cases even with a doctor’s signature.

Coinfirm says this could indicate ‘probable corruption in the healthcare sector’.

Analysts found that one of the addresses to which funds for fake COVID certificates were sent belongs to a Hong Kong-registered exchange serving ‘clients from Eastern Europe’. Coinfirm did not specify the name of the trading platform, but noted that it does not provide KYC procedures. [simple_tooltip content=’Know Your Customer (Know Your Client) — mandatory counterparty identification’]KYC[/simple_tooltip] procedures.

According to them, this wallet earned the largest income of all analyzed illicit addresses – in total it received 1.2 BTC (more than $40,000) in less than a year.

Vaccination certificates are also sold on the Russian dark web marketplace Hydra for 30,000, 15,000 and 3,500 rubles. Despite the significant price differences, each of the three documents, according to the seller, guarantees entry of data into the national registry and contains ‘a certificate of completion of the full COVID-19 vaccination course, the date of vaccination and the vaccine lot, the doctor’s signature and the seal of the medical organization’.

Hydra also sells negative tests for the coronavirus for 3,000 to 4,000 rubles.

Another popular item on the dark web are ‘genuine’ vaccines that were allegedly stolen.

In December 2020, BuzzFeed News reported that a portion of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from potentially fraudulent ads, including the sale of counterfeit COVID-19 medicines.

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