Fake vaccine cards are everywhere. It’s a public health nightmare.

Some peddle clumsy knockoffs — cheap paper rectangles that read “COVLID” instead of “COVID” and use mismatched typefaces and bad Spanish translations. Most offer cards that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, which pretty much everyone who has one or has seen one agrees isn’t too hard.

Some sellers even promise to input a customer’s fraudulent data into hospital or state databases, backstopping a paper lie with an official digital record.

“If you don’t want to take the deadly and satanic COVID vaccine but want to travel around the world without a hitch, click on our contact information below,” a Telegram account called “COVID-19 VACCINATION CARDS” teased to potential buyers. A photo of foot-tall stacks of blank vaccination cards illustrates the pitch.

In a video posted to the Telegram group “Covid-19 CDC NHS Passport,” someone flips through a thick stack of blank Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine records like a deck of playing cards. Below the video, a caption read: “Order your vaccine cards and certificate today and stay away from the poisonous vaccine.”

Another Telegram seller, going by the name “Dr Lesley,” promoted their operation by sharing a photo of industrial equipment and stacks of counterfeit vaccination cards.

They’re just a few of thousands of online sellers offering fake vaccine credentials, a Grid investigation found. Vendors advertise their wares openly on Facebook, Twitter and other popular platforms. When we made contact with sellers there, they directed us to other platforms, particularly Telegram, to complete sales. Nearly all requested payment in cryptocurrency and provided detailed instructions on how to do so.

The fakes aren’t cheap. Fraudulent CDC cards were commonly advertised online at $100 a card early last year, according to Bruce Linder, emerging threats expert with the cybersecurity firm Check Point Software. By September, prices had doubled to $200, he said.

Prices have risen in recent months, as health officials have pushed booster shots to address the spread of the omicron variant and more employers, venues and governments imposed mandates. By this month, most sellers we observed priced fake credentials between $200 and $650.

Some sellers offered the choice of a fake vaccine card or a fake doctor’s note to claim a medical exemption from vaccine mandates. One seller listed fraudulent negative covid PCR test results. Another claimed access to a nonpublic CDC database of lot numbers and expiration dates of vaccines used for verification, which could enhance the credibility of their forgeries.

Grid could not determine whether these offers were real. But a peek in their bitcoin wallets showed they are definitely big business: A forensic look at one Telegram seller’s bitcoin wallet showed they have received over $90,000 from hundreds of transactions over the last nine months, most of which were for amounts between $100 and $600.

Telegram, the fraudsters’ app of choice

There were more than 10,000 vendors on Telegram selling fake vaccine cards on the website as of September last year, according to research by Check Point Software. When Grid checked this month, we found at least 557,000 subscribers to Telegram channels advertising fake credentials for sale, although those numbers are virtually impossible to verify.

“It’s a problem — and it’s a problem across every country we looked at,” said Check Point’s Linder. The group has identified 28 countries for which fake vaccination cards are being sold on the dark web and Telegram.

Telegram did not respond to requests for comment.

Although Telegram has emerged as a popular platform for fraudsters around the world to conduct discreet transactions far from law enforcement’s view, many sellers attract their potential buyers by pitching them with anti-vaccine rhetoric on Facebook and Twitter.

Telegram has been downloaded millions of times from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store. Both companies prohibit apps that facilitate criminal activity.

“User generated content that promotes the use or distribution of fake vaccine cards is a violation of App Store guidelines, and we are communicating with the developer to ensure this material is removed from the app,” Apple spokesman Peter Ajemian said in response to questions from Grid. Ultimately, Ajemian said, app developers are responsible for moderating their users’ content.

A handful of Telegram accounts that Grid identified to Apple on Friday as examples of fraudulent vaccine card activity had disappeared from Telegram by Monday.

U.S. platforms are falling short

One Facebook group, titled “USA fake COVID-19 vaccination card for sale,” featured images of vaccine cards strewn on a tabletop alongside a baby it claimed had been disfigured by a vaccination. The Facebook group linked to a Telegram channel called “Covid-19 CDC NHS Passport,” which advertised credentials for sale for $450.

Facebook deactivated more than a dozen groups concerning fake vaccination cards from its platform — including “USA fake COVID-19 vaccination card for sale” — shortly after Grid identified them in an inquiry to the company on Jan. 19.

Other Facebook groups advertising falsified documents until they were deactivated earlier this month had titles that left little doubt as to their intent, including groups named “Buy Valid fake legit covid 19 certificate card — digital certificate” and “COVID-19 vaccination certificate vaccine cards digital passport for sale.”

“We prohibit anyone from buying, selling, or trading fake, or even genuine, medical documents on our platforms — and that includes COVID-19 vaccine certificates,” said Aaron Simpson, a spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s newly renamed parent company.

Twitter also hosted accounts advertising fake vaccine cards for sale. One Twitter account Grid found, named “Covid-19 Vaccination Cards/Certificates,” had a user bio that read: “Contact me and get your valid Covid-19 Vaccination Certificate without having to take the poisonous vaccine!!”

Twitter also suspended more than 20 accounts identified to the company by Grid this month. The social media giant did not respond as of publication time to questions about the company’s policies and practices, and its failure to remove the accounts earlier.

Law enforcement lags

Federal authorities have also made sporadic arrests of people accused of distributing fake vaccination cards, often purchased online from foreign countries.

After the cards were delivered to his address in July, according to a criminal complaint, posts on Shabazz’s Facebook and Instagram accounts pitched: “Who need a vaccination card to bypass the bs they starting to do with our ‘freedom’. DM NOW FOR PRICE ✅💯.” A few weeks later, Shabazz’s Facebook account featured an update: “Only 17 cards left Dm me quick they are going like hot cakes.” An attorney for Shabazz did not respond to requests for comment, and the court docket does not reflect if a plea has been entered.

According to statements by federal authorities in charging documents in the criminal cases, most of the seized shipments of fake vaccine cards “originated from Asia and were commonly found to be falsely described on shipping manifests and other records as containing ‘paper card[s],’ ‘card[s],’ ‘greeting card[s],’ or other terms.”

There are no federal criminal statutes specific to falsifying vaccination cards. Federal authorities have charged people accused of vaccine card fraud with a variety of crimes including wire fraud, mail fraud, fraud with identification documents and other violations. The Department of Justice did not respond to questions from Grid.

The CDC cards are “ridiculous”

“These vaccination cards are ridiculous,” said Noel Brewer, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Public Health who studies public health behavior. “They take us back 50 years. They’re better than nothing in some literal sense, but they’re not actually a good solution.”

As a result, the United States is one of the world’s few wealthy democracies that has not implemented a national vaccination database and verification system. Proof of vaccination for the approximately 250 million Americans who have received at least one shot is as flimsy as the cardstock it’s printed on.

“There is no overnight solution,” said Sharona Hoffman, professor of law and bioethics at Case Western Reserve University. “It is pretty laughable that the richest country in the world has people walking around with little paper cards.”

White House and Congress are AWOL

From the time vaccines first became widely available in the United States early last year, the Biden administration has signaled that “vaccine passports” or a national credentialing system were non-starters.

But Biden and his advisers were concerned Republican politicians who opposed vaccine mandates would make political hay out of a national credential system, the Times found. “The policy is no policy” was the unofficial word from the White House, one official told the paper.

Hoffman said while the paper card-based system in place in the United States is not ideal, the increasingly political debate over vaccine mandates means there will not likely be a fix any time soon.

“If there were a priority, it could be done,” she said, “but probably it’s a better priority to actually vaccinate people — and we’re having enough trouble with that.”