Postal Police puts an end to the buying and selling of fake Green Passes on Telegram: 32 groups closed, 4 people reported and the names of the buyers were seized.
While still waiting for an intervention by Telegram, it was already the Postal Police to put a big brake on the buying and selling of fake Green Passes on the groups of the chat app: with the operation "Fake Pass", in fact, the Police has identified and closed 32 Telegram channels and identified, searched and reported four people, two of whom are minors.
The investigations revealed what we have had occasion to verify firsthand and we have already told you in recent days: there were Telegram groups, absolutely easy to find and reach, within which they sold almost in the light of day fake Green Passes. The prices ranged from 100 to 500 euros, there were even discounted family packages, and payments were made with Amazon vouchers or other untraceable methods. In particular through the purchase and subsequent transfer of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies based on the blockchain. It was from the blockchain that the Postal Police started to reconstruct the movements of the virtual currency and to arrive at the wallets where the money ended up.
Operation Fake Pass: the details
The Postal Police has ascertained the dynamics that we have already described: the fraudsters asked their buyers, in addition to the payment of money, the copy of an identity document and the number of the health card. Two elements necessary to generate the real Green Pass.
The scammers told potential buyers that the fake green certificates were generated by a compliant doctor, who entered the data provided in the platform of the Ministry of Health. However, as the Postal Police points out, this method cannot generate valid Green Passes: "A QR-CODE generated with a non-authentic certification would not pass the verification procedure, resulting false."
Many people, thousands according to the investigators, have taken the bait by signing up to groups and paying for a fake Green Pass.
Fake Green Passes: what is the risk
The Postal Police searched the homes and electronic devices of the four suspects, who are all accused of the crimes of fraud and forgery. In the devices of the suspects there are traces of documents sent by those who bought the Green Pass on Telegram, so the names of many of those who did so are now available to investigators.
At the moment, the Postal Police has not formalized any accusation against them, but only because they are still looking for all of them: "The investigations of the Postal Police meanwhile continue, to identify the administrators of other online channels of buying and selling of the false certifications, and of their buyers".
We will know shortly what they will be accused of, but one thing is already more than certain: if someone tried to use a fake Green Pass bought on Telegram (or elsewhere) during a control they would be discovered. In such a case the complaint would be certain.