A global black market for negative COVID-19 test results has emerged

• As the coronavirus pandemic continues, people around the world are turning to the black market for negative COVID-19 tests that allow them to travel.
• Incidents in South America, Europe and Africa highlight the emergence of the global black market for negative COVID-19 results.
• In one case, French police arrested a circle of salespeople operating out of Charles de Gaulle airport who allegedly charged $ 180 to $ 360 for false negative results, according to the AP.
• Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues around the world, some people are turning to an emerging black market for false negative test results.

In France, at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in September, a group of seven people were arrested for selling forged digital certificates intended to prove negative results for the coronavirus, the AP reported last week. The group was discovered following an investigation triggered by a traveler leaving France for Ethiopia. The traveler allegedly had a fake digital certificate claiming he had tested negative for the virus.

The Parisian group is said to sell the false test results for between $ 180 and $ 360 each.

In another case, in late October, a group of travelers in Brazil were found with falsified negative test results in an attempt to enter the Fernando de Noronha island cluster, the AP reported.

Rather than buying fake test results, the group is accused of altering its own results.

In yet another case, in the UK, several men told the Lancashire Telegraph that they had tampered with friends’ test results in order to travel. “You can just get their test negative and change the name and date of birth to your own. You also put a test date that is within the required timeframe,” the anonymous man said. “You download the email, you edit it, and then you print it.”

Coronavirus diagnoses and deaths continue to rise around the world, and the pandemic has seen a resurgence in recent months in North America and Europe, according to the World Health Organization. As of November 12, the virus has killed more than 1.2 million people and infected more than 51 million people worldwide.

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