British authorities are working to prevent the sale of fake coronavirus vaccines by fraudsters, it has emerged.
A National Crime Agency (NCA) official said that while the early stages of the pandemic saw criminal groups use personal protective equipment (PPE) scams to target businesses, vaccine fraud was the “emerging threat”.
Speaking at a webinar held by the Resilience First group, Graeme Biggar, the director general of the NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre, said:
“The new emerging threat will be around vaccine fraud.
“We haven’t seen much of that yet, but we absolutely expect when vaccines begin to roll out that there will be people offering fake vaccines. We are trying to get ahead of that trend now.”
Mr Biggar said criminals were using the coronavirus as a “hook” for different kinds of fraud.
Businesses are urged to train their staff in identifying key scam and fraud indicators in order to reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim of cyber crime.
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