In Louisville, Kentucky, officials advised residents this week to avoid a number of pop-up coronavirus testing sites. View Gallery: Pop-up coronavirus testing sites believed to be a scam The scams, however, have not been confined to federal jurisdictions. "Capitalizing on this crisis to reap illicit profits or otherwise preying on Americans is reprehensible and will not be tolerated," Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said in a separate memo to federal prosecutors last week. attorneys to appoint a coordinator for all virus-fraud cases in their districts, raising the prospect that those who threatened or attempted to spread the virus could be charged with federal terrorism offenses because the virus could be classified as a biological agent. Coronavirus-related fraud attempts seen at federal, state levelsĪs part of the federal effort, the Justice Department has directed all 94 U.S. "The pandemic is dangerous enough without wrongdoers seeking to profit from public panic, and this sort of conduct cannot be tolerated," Attorney General William Barr said in a memo to federal prosecutors across the country last month, urging a crackdown on a constellation of schemes targeting the public. In Virginia, telephone scammers, posing as local hospital representatives, warned residents of possible virus exposure and sought to lure them to sham test sites. A Texas-based website was offering a coronavirus "vaccine" until authorities won a restraining order against its operators. Indeed, as the virus has spread across the globe and killed more than 5,000 people in the U.S., all manner of criminal schemes, many of them stoking fear and panic, have been taking root in its widening wake.Įnforcing shutdowns: Officials grapple with stay-at-home orders, social distancingĪuthorities in Kentucky have been investigating drive-up testing sites promising same-day results for $250. “While there are people going through what they are going through, you can either go bankrupt or you can prosper," Santos allegedly boasted in a telephone call March 19, referring to the pandemic. "Everybody has been chasing the Covid dollar bird."
Santos, according to court documents filed this week in New Jersey, arranged to be paid kickbacks for each COVID-19 test referred when they were bundled with other, more expensive respiratory examinations. Watch Video: COVID-19 pandemic myths debunkedįor more than a year, a 49-year-old Georgia man allegedly ran a thriving scheme in which he referred patients to medical testing facilities in return for lucrative kickbacks.īeginning in February, federal prosecutors said, Erik Santos set his sights on a new potential moneymaker: the coronavirus.
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