U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Tennessee have seized thousands of counterfeit coronavirus vaccination cards made in China so far this year, the agency said.
The CBP said officers at the Port of Memphis intercepted shipments totaling 3,017 vaccination cards.
The agency said in a recent statement that the fake documents, sent from the city of Shenzhen, come with a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logo in the upper-right corner, blank spaces for names, dates and places of inoculation, birth dates and the vaccination provider.
But the inauthenticity of the cards was apparent by the typos and unfinished words, the CBP said, noting “some of the Spanish verbiage on the back was misspelled.”
“The recipients of this ubiquitous contraband are unfortunately all over the United States,” the statement said.
Buying or selling or using a counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination is a crime and could be punishable by a fine and up to five years in prison, the agency said.
