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May 28, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — As international travel becomes increasingly choked by COVID-19 test requirements and looming vaccination checks, some travelers are using fake test result certificates to claim they are not a biological threat, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Fake COVID-19 test result certificates, of the kind required by airlines in order to board international flights, have proliferated since the early months of 2021 in countries the world over. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association for the world’s airlines, has found fake COVID test certificates being used in South America, Asia, the Middle East, and a selection of countries in western Europe. Some individuals have been arrested after they were caught selling the paper documents.

Two women traveling from the U.K. to Ghana explained the ease with which they procured illicit COVID test certificates in a BBC report. “I just asked people I knew, ‘who does photoshop?’ I asked my friends to see their COVID tests just to get a structure of what the certificate looks like and then had someone make one for me,” said one of the women.

Airlines, as well as the IATA, have been pushing for digital versions of health certification, in an attempt to quell the growing market for forged paper passes. Airlines are particularly motivated to establish a more secure system for checking health passports, as the burden for enforcing the rules is placed on their shoulders. The German government, for instance, recently fined the flag bearer, Lufthansa, around €25,000 (approx. $29,800) for permitting passengers to fly with fake COVID certificates, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Elsewhere, a private airline has been fined by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for transporting 27 “COVID positive” passengers between the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan earlier this month. The CAA issued a warning that, should another violation of this kind happen again, more serious penalties will be imposed, according to reports.

With the introduction of the “Digital Green Certificate” in the European Union (EU), it is expected that many Europeans will turn to the dark web for fake documentation. The “Digital Green Certificate” is set to include a scannable QR code detailing the bearer’s name, date of birth, and passport number, as well as the date of vaccination, the vaccine’s type (only EU-approved vaccines will be allowed), status regarding a former infection with COVID-19, and the presence or absence of antibodies.

People who have not received the vaccine and who have not had COVID-19 will have their PCR test status on their certificate, which is to be produced in both digital and paper forms.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) warned in a tweet that coronavirus test certification may pave the way for more strict enforcement and the broad implementation of vaccine passports, chipping away civil liberties in the process. “Bless your heart if you think the walk from ‘15 days to slow the spread’ to ‘papers please’ was accidental or spontaneous,” he said.

The IATA is devising its own system to extinguish efforts to circumvent national health pass requirements. “IATA Travel Pass addresses this challenge [fake tests] by enabling travelers to control and share their digital vaccination certificate or test results with airlines and border authorities, easing facilitation and reducing the risk of fraudulent documents,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh said in a statement early May.

However, “[as] long as travel restrictions remain in place due to the COVID-19 situation, it is highly likely that production and sales of fake test certificates will prevail,” a spokesman for the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol said. This may be made more likely by the fact that fake certificates can be purchased for a fraction of the price of an actual test.

The Wall Street Journal reported a listing seen on the dark web for a fake COVID test certificate, for which the seller was asking a mere $22.35. The on-site tests at airports can cost six or seven times as much.

Though governments continue to make travel across national borders difficult whether or not one has contracted SARS-CoV-2, the necessity of such tests — and COVID vaccination checks — for safeguarding against the spread of the disease has yet to be proven.

In fact, Seychelles, the world’s most vaccinated country, saw the largest increase in COVID infections in the world earlier this month. Though previously boasting that some 60 percent of its population had been “fully vaccinated” against the coronavirus, this did not stop the country recording 336 positive tests per 100,000 population in the first week of May, vastly outstripping that of India, which had seen around 28 positive tests per 100,000 population in the same time period. Total deaths per 100,000, too, show Seychelles to have almost double the rate of India’s overall COVID-related death toll, according to the New York Times’ global coronavirus tracker.