London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Fake Covid passes advertised for sale online

Fake Covid passes advertised for sale online

Fraudsters are directing people on Facebook to sites claiming to sell fake Covid vaccine passes for those haven't been jabbed, the BBC has found.

People in the UK are required to prove their vaccination status in order to access some places and to avoid self-isolation after travelling abroad.

But posts on the social media site are offering unvaccinated people false certification to get around the rules.

Facebook said it would remove the content "whenever we find it".

NHS Covid passes were introduced in England in some settings, as part of the UK government's Plan B measures in the wake of the Omicron coronavirus variant spreading rapidly.

"We were finding passes, certificates, cards, vaccine cards, even down to choice of what vaccine you wanted recording on the card," said Jonathan Benton, who runs cyber investigation firm Intelligent Sanctuary.

Mr Benton, a former senior detective, said a range of passes were available for sale, ranging from some which are legitimate cards but fraudulently filled in, to complete forgeries.

Covid certificates have been found for sale alongside drugs, weapons and stolen goods on the dark web, with sellers claiming to provide documentation from many countries, including the US and the EU.

A government spokesperson said: "Fraud is a crime and falsifying evidence of Covid-19 status could not only put lives at risk but lead to a £10,000 fine.

"The NHS Covid Pass is a safe, secure and free way for individuals to share their Covid-19 vaccination record - it includes rigorous security features to minimise the risk of fraud and help organisations authenticate the Covid Pass presented to them.

"We continue to work closely with law enforcement and partners to tackle online scams, including Covid-19 related fraud."

Fake certificates from multiple countries

In one post, one seller claimed to be able to provide certificates from 22 countries including Portugal, France, Greece, Spain, Australia, Latvia, Morocco and the UK.

They were not only offering paper certificates, but purported to be able to provide national health authority Covid apps with QR codes, because they said they worked with people inside health authorities, who would able to add information to the database.

"Sadly, I would say [that claim] is probably highly credible," said Mr Benton, who also previously worked for the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Mr Benton said it was difficult to know who is behind such sales, but he and his team believed organised crime groups were involved, with more criminals moving to online spaces.

"If I'm committing organised, violent crime out there on the street, and there's a risk of me getting caught and then going to prison for 10 years, versus being behind the screen of a laptop having a number of people committing fraud, I'm going to naturally migrate to that place," he said.

Meanwhile, on Facebook, the BBC found several examples of posts or comments claiming to be selling Covid vaccination certificates for people who had not been jabbed.

The posts advertised that passes would help people keep their jobs, attend events or travel more easily.

And while some posts were taken down within a few days by Facebook, the BBC reported 10 posts and comments.

The majority were taken down within 24 hours, but more posts and comments have appeared again on the same pages since then.

The BBC also found several Facebook posts linked to channels on encrypted messaging app Telegram which offered to sell Covid certificates to unvaccinated people.

'Impossible to stop'


Analysis by the BBC and cyber-security firm Checkpoint found that over a seven-month period between December 2020 and July 2021, Telegram channels offering Covid passes for unvaccinated people in multiple languages grew from below 10 to more than 1,000.

Telegram channels are being used to sell fake Covid vaccination certificates to people


One Telegram channel claiming to offer NHS and EU digital Covid passports has amassed more than 180,000 subscribers since 14 December.

The BBC has contacted Telegram for comment.

For Mr Benton, the task of catching fraudsters is a difficult one, and counterfeiting is "impossible" to stop.

"If you look at the sites that we are looking at, where you've got passes or QR passes for sale. On those same websites they are selling illegal drugs, firearms, a number of illicit materials," he said.

"Frankly law enforcement are struggling to keep on top of it and understand who is behind selling these goods. I can't see how they can possibly police it."

The problem of forged Covid passes is not new or unique to the UK, with fraudsters also advertising fake Covid certificates in the US.

For $100 (£70), one vendor said they could deliver a "registered" card, with either the logo of the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) or the NHS.

It is difficult to know how many fake passes are in circulation, but according to one Border Force union, some have been used to try to get into the UK.

Lucy Moreton of the Immigration Services Union said fake passes had been available ever since official vaccination documentation was introduced.

"When border force were checking, we were seeing a significant minority. We would get a number of them every single day and we've no reason to believe that's changed," she added.

'Stronger action needed'
The Immigration Services Union says border immigration queues would be unmanageable if extensive checks into the validity of Covid passports were to be introduced


Earlier this year, Border Force was directed to stop checking people's Covid documentation and airlines have been doing so instead.

"Because Border Force no longer check routinely, we don't know how prevalent these are and how much this is actually being used and being missed by the airlines who are understandably not forgery experts," said Ms Moreton.

She said spotting fakes was "no different from spotting an email scam", but added there was "no model" for extensive checks and that border queues would "become really unmanageable".

But, she says, returning to paperwork checks would cause other problems.

"There's no model for running the UK border extends to controlling British citizen in a process that takes 10-12 minutes If we were to check from every individual, rapidly the queues would become really unmanageable."

The Labour Party said the UK needed "much stronger action" against this type of online crime and called on the Home Office to "urgently make sure the border Covid system isn't full of gaps because of fake documents".

A statement from Meta, which owns Facebook, said it prohibited anyone from buying, selling, or trading fake, or even genuine, medical documents on its platforms.

"We'll continue to identify and remove this content whenever we find it, and will disable accounts, pages or groups that repeatedly break our rules," the company added.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×