11th November 2020
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UNODC expects organised criminals will try to sell fake Covid-19 vaccines
Law enforcement bodies are on high-alert amid fears that organised criminal gangs (OCGs) will soon offer fake Covid-19 vaccines, experts have warned.
Speaking at a global online conference on organised crime, Riika Puttonen from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), this week warned: “As we get closer to having a vaccine, we definitely anticipate an increase in these scams – in falsification and marketing of non-existent medicines. This is definitely not the end of it. [It is] perhaps the beginning of it.”
The UN’s warning follows news on Monday that US pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Biontech have completed advanced trials of a potential Covid-19 vaccine which has been 90 per cent successful at preventing the disease which develops from Coronavirus.
While the pharma giants await formal approval of their potential vaccine, a process which will include weeks of further expert analysis, many states have begun to scale up their plans to mass distribute any future vaccines. Almost 50 advanced trials for potential vaccines are taking place around the globe, although one of China’s late-stage trials in Brazil was this week halted following a “severe adverse” incident.
The UK has secured 40 million doses of the potential Pfizer-Biontech vaccine. But as things stand, no Covid-19 vaccine has received formal approval from the World Health Organisation.
Addressing the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GITOC) conference on 10 November, Colin Craig, a UNODC consultant tackling the huge black market for falsified medical products, warned that local and international efforts will be needed to stop organised criminals from exploiting people desperate to obtain a breakthrough vaccine.
UNODC is not an operational body, so it was not possible for delegates to comment on what measures individual countries are taking to address the upcoming threat of falsified vaccines.
But speaking more broadly about what will be critical in the fight against black market scams, Craig said two main pillars of action will be necessary. The first is the need to raise awareness so that people know the risk involved in obtaining falsified vaccines.
“In addition, we’ll need co-operation between law enforcement, healthcare, pharmaceutical and regulatory bodies. The co-operation between countries on this…is going to be another component of an effective response to this threat,” he added.
A senior UK law enforcement source told this blog: “Police, customs and intelligence agencies across every major state will be on high-alert should any vaccines receive formal approval for use. We anticipate that organised criminal gangs will try to exploit the situation. It is imperative that they are prevented from doing so.
“It’s also important to stress that people should not seek to obtain supposed vaccines from non-approved sources. Fake vaccines could endanger health and will not offer protection from Covid-19.”
Craig told the GITOC audience that, in one case of false medicines that he studied, criminals were able to offer fake life-saving drugs to care home residents and sold some 900,000 doses worth millions. Some 700,000 doses of the fake medicines were consumed before the remaining 200,000 were recalled.
The fakes were packaged so accurately that investigators found it difficult to tell the difference between the real drugs and fakes.
Speaking to the GITOC audience, Craig warned that falsified medical products is now one of the most lucrative forms of organised crime, but draws less attention than issues such as human or drugs trafficking.
NOTE: The GITOC conference was a 24-hour online event which brought together a panel of almost 200 experts to discuss recent developments in organised crime and how to tackle them. I’ll blog further on specific discussions which took place during the conference.
More to come…
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