Thousands of people have fallen prey to an elaborate wide-ranging scam selling fake coronavirus vaccines in India, with doctors and medical workers among those arrested for their involvement, authorities say.
This cruel scam occurred after about 12 vaccination sites were set up in the city of Mumbai in May and June, the New York Times reports. People were charged $10 to $17 per dose.
According to Deutsche Welle, in Mumbai alone, an estimated 2,053 residents were given fake COVID-19 vaccines at the sites, while Debanjan Deb, a 28-year-old man, posed as a civil servant and reportedly inoculated around 2,000 people, including a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker.
Vishal Thakur, a senior official of the Mumbai police department said, “They were using saline water and injecting it,” Thakur said. “Every fake vaccination camp that they held, they were doing this.”
And if that wasn’t enough, the scammers were using a hospital that provided the vaccination certificates, syringes, and vials.
So far, according to CNN, 14 people have been arrested on suspicion of cheating, attempts at culpable homicide, criminal conspiracy, and other charges. More arrests may come as police continue investigating other people involved in the scam, Thakur said.
Police also found vaccine vials, labeled as Covishield and Covaxin that actually contained Amikacin, an antibiotic medication used to cure several bacterial infections.
The Indian government is trying to downplay this scandal, saying it only involved a few people and was an “aberration.”
“We have vaccinated over 330 million people. Such cases [of fake vaccinations] can be easily spotted the moment you do not receive a message from the CoWin app. We are in touch with state authorities that are taking action [against the culprits],” Lav Agarwal, a joint secretary in the Ministry of Health, said on Tuesday.
Perhaps even scarier is finding out that counterfeit medicines are available all over the country. According to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), almost 20 percent of all pharmaceutical products sold in India in 2019 were fake.
This goes along with a 2015 survey that showed at least 4.5 percent of all generic drugs in India were either fake or substandard.