The president of the Spanish pharmaceutical company PharmaMar is one of the over 2,200 people listed by Spanish police as having purchased fake coronavirus vaccination documents.
José María Fernández Sousa-Faro, the founder and president of PharmaMar, is one of the over 2,200 people identified as having paid a criminal network to fake their coronavirus vaccination status, following a Spanish police operation known as Operation Jenner.
The 76-year-old was shown in the vaccine registry as having taken at least three doses of Wuhan virus vaccine, investigators stated.
Police say several other high profile names are on the list, including Australian tennis player Álex de Miñaur and Spanish musician Omar Montes.
Police say that the network was able to change vaccine statuses in the Spanish National Vaccination Registry and charged clients cash for the service, the newspaper El Mundoreports.
According to police, the network facilitating the fake vaccination papers was in operation from around September of last year until January of this year. Operation Jenner also led to the dismantling of a broader network that operated across the European Union.
Forgers are said to have charged different amounts of cash for their service depending on how many doses the person wished to be marked as having received. A total of 15 people, including a nurse and a nursing assistant, were arrested earlier this year in connection with the operation.
The nurses are accused of having stolen the personal access codes of other medical professionals and used said access codes to commit fraudulent activities.
Over the course of the Wuhan virus pandemic, there have been multiple networks offering fake vaccination documents, as many countries enacted health passport systems requiring vaccinations, proof of recent recovery, or negative tests to access venues, use transportation, or simply be allowed to work.
In December, Italian police claimed the number of fake coronavirus vaccination documents being sold online had surged and warned medical professionals, including doctors, may have been involved in faking people’s vaccination status.
Italian police officer Fabio Ferrari commented at the time on other issues arising from the sale of the fake documents, saying: “What people don’t realise is that they hand over their ID and patient documents to rogue individuals and that this information is then resold.”