Counterfeit coupons, fake EU COVID-19 certificates and more

‘Dark-side’ coupon scheme cheats retailers out of millions

A tip from Walgreens to authorities in Montgomery County, Texas, about customers using fake coupons led to the arrest of three people for theft.

The suspects are allegedly connected to a group of 87 individuals across 23 states who’ve scammed retailers with counterfeit coupons worth almost $10 million in everyday household items. (See “A ‘dark-side coupon group’ scammed stores out of millions, police say. ‘They were just going through the ink,’ " by Jaclyn Peiser, The Washington Post, July 2.) 

Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Tim Holifield described the scheme as a “dark-web or dark-side coupon group that is doing nothing but selling coupons that are fraudulently and sophistically made to resemble actual coupons by the manufacturers.”

Investigators discovered a website where customers could order the counterfeit coupons and identified possible conspirators via online marketplaces such as Facebook and Craigslist. Police raided four locations with printers supposedly identical to ones that retailers use. 

Diapers, antiseptic wipes, toothpaste and dog food totaling $40,000 were seized in the raid, and those items have been donated to charities.

Italy clamps down on fake EU COVID-19 certificates

Italian police clamped down over the summer on online schemes to sell fake digital COVID-19 certificates designed to facilitate travel across the Continent. (See “Italy breaks up fake EU COVID pass schemes,” Reuters, July 3.)

The certificates carry a “QR” code to prove that travelers have been vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 and have tested negative.

Police in Italy seized 10 channels on the encrypted messaging service Telegram linked to anonymous accounts on dark-web marketplaces, where sellers ask for cryptocurrency as payment for the certificates, according to the article. The price for an “all-inclusive” package that included a fake certificate and a vial of vaccine ranged from 110 to 130 euros. 

Police discovered the scheme using artificial intelligence tools that monitored the web in real time and interacted with sellers as potential customers. Gian Luca Berruti, head of the Milan tax police’s cyberfraud unit, described the AI tools as “a kind of outpost of ours on the internet.”

Ex-building inspection commission president indicted for fraud

A U.S. federal grand jury has indicted Rodrigo Santos, onetime president of the San Francisco Building Inspection Commission, on 10 counts of bank fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of obstruction of justice for a scheme that stretched between November 2012 and March 2019. (See “Former San Francisco Building Inspection Commission President Facing Federal Fraud Charges," CBS SF, July 2.)

Santos was appointed to the San Francisco Building Inspection Commission in 2000 and became president of the commission in 2004.

As principal and co-founder of a San Francisco-based structural engineering company, Santos allegedly obtained money from clients who wrote checks to pay fees or costs related to their residential building and construction projects. Santos would then manipulate the checks to make them appear to have been written to him. According to the article, Santos deposited to his personal checking account about 445 checks written as pay to the order of a third party, totaling $775,412.90.