Vaccines and dark web

(To Alessandro Rugolo)
07/06/21

COVID 19 has affected our lives over the past 18 months by forcing us to change our social life habits. From the banal handshake, which has now disappeared, to visiting older relatives, considered as an attack!

COVID 19 has also changed our work habits, forcing people and companies to stay at home and learn to work remotely. We have talked about this many times in our articles in which we analyzed the increase in risk ...

Now, as rumors circulate that the virus has leaked from the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan (although we had already heard of it as a fake news!) alternating with the numbers of vaccination campaigns that should allow us to get out of the tunnel, an aspect linked to COVID 19 still little known begins to emerge: vaccines, or presumed such, for sale on the Dark web. In a broad sense this is not new; medicines, drugs and performance-enhancing substances have always been on sale on the dark web.

Last March, during an international conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about vaccine trafficking:

“We urge all people not to buy vaccines outside government-run vaccination programs. Any vaccine outside these programs may be substandard or falsified, with the potential to cause serious harm ... "

In the same month, a Kaspersky study showed evidence of real or suspected sale of vaccines on the dark web. The cost per dose could be as high as $ 1.200, certainly not a popular price! Again according to this study, 30% of the cases were real vaccines, probably illegally stolen from health facilities. Clearly this means that the remaining 70% received, in exchange for a considerable sum, a substance that is at best harmless but certainly not very effective ...

The sale of vaccines and protective devices of all kinds has grown over time, to meet the demands of the black market and, in a certain sense, to make up for the organizational and control deficiencies of the states that have not been able to manage properly. the pandemic.
It appears that the main markets for the sale of vaccines on the dark web are the US, UK, Germany and France, where an average dose was paid for the equivalent of $ 500, mostly in bitcoin

Payment made ... a question we ask ourselves: who knows if buyers have received their vaccine according to the standards required to maintain the cold chain that guarantees its effectiveness.

But on the other hand it has always been known that "the devil's flour goes all in bran".

To learn more:

WHO warns against sales of counterfeit Covid vaccines on the dark web (cnbc.com);

COVID-19 vaccine doses have been sold on the dark web. Are they real? -CBS News

Coronavirus vaccines selling on darknet black markets | Kaspersky official blog

Dark web vendors are selling shady coronavirus 'vaccines' for $ 300, and there's been an uptick in listings since the FDA authorized Pfizer's shot (businessinsider.fr)