The authorities pinned employees of the health network from all over Quebec who, for money, participated in the manufacture of thousands of fraudulent vaccine passports. These people registered tons of false vaccines in the government’s vaccination register, all with disarming ease, confides one of the individuals arrested.
Updated at 0:00
“It was very easy money and their security was so poor, it’s like they’re telling you: Do it! “says Adams Diwa, a former employee of the Olympic Stadium vaccination center arrested in November. In an interview with La Presse, he admits having received approximately $60,000 in bribes to register false vaccination evidence in the files of around sixty people, the equivalent of more or less $1,000 for each false registration. He is far from alone.
According to three sources, including one directly involved in investigations, vaccine passports obtained thanks to all the fraud discovered in recent months have still not been revoked by Quebec. Employees of an establishment who wanted to dismiss them were even told by their superiors not to do so. Information that has not been confirmed by the Ministry of Health, which did not answer any of our questions on Wednesday.
By the end of the summer, several thousand probable frauds had been reported to this same ministry, confirms one of our informants. The Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC), but also the government and certain health establishments, are currently conducting investigations. Spinning, house searches, frozen bank accounts, seizure of telephones and other exhibits, regular interrogations: several means have been deployed and workers have been fired, according to several sources familiar with the matter who are not authorized to express publicly.
No charges have reportedly been brought to court at this stage but some people have been arrested by the police during the investigation.
“We receive a very large number of denunciations which lead us to open a very large number of investigations and we put all the resources necessary for these investigations to bear fruit. This is a priority for the commissioner at the moment, because it affects the health of citizens,” said UPAC spokesperson Mathieu Galarneau in an interview with La Presse, who refuses to comment on the specific files or the number of targeted suspects.
“What we want is for people who have seen the use or manufacture of false vaccine passports to call us,” he said.
Many clues
In November, CISSSs and CIUSSSs were alerted by Quebec via the INSPQ to the existence of thousands of entries considered “abnormal” in the provincial vaccination register. Were considered questionable: vaccines entered into the system several weeks or months late. Vaccines entered into the system overnight. Or when the two doses of the same vaccine, theoretically administered on two different dates, were entered into the system at the same time. Sometimes the data submitted by citizens to obtain their Vaxicode implied the presence of the same vaccinator in two regions at the same time.
At the Olympic Stadium, where large-scale fraud took place, UPAC police reportedly began investigating and meeting with employees in the fall. We were already talking, at that time, of 5,000 to 10,000 false vaccination certificates. Employees who saw fraud invalidated vaccinations in the system but managers forced them to revalidate them.
In a CIUSSS in the metropolis, a managerial employee was targeted by the investigators. The police reportedly seized his bank accounts and several thousand dollars in them. According to a source who is not authorized to publicly disclose this information, this executive was the link with vaccinators in the field. He received $1,000 per false passport produced, but gave back $500 to vaccinators who entered false data. CIUSSS officials would have unmasked one of the fraudsters by comparing the number of files he had processed after one day with that of his colleagues. There were considerably more than the others. The person would have agreed to sit down at the table. At least five people, all recruited by the Je Contribue platform, were subsequently fired.
This small network would have managed to produce several thousand passports thanks to its scheme.
In another CIUSSS, just over five people have been pinned recently. In all, they would have falsified up to 2000 vaccines. They all worked independently and were not part of a network. One such person alone forged nearly 500 vaccines, says another source who is not authorized to speak publicly. The fake passports produced have not yet been deactivated.
“I have no excuses”
Adams Diwa, the former employee of the Olympic Stadium vaccination center mentioned earlier in this text, does not seek to justify himself or present himself as a victim. “I have no excuse, no reason for what I did. I’m not going to value it. Money is attractive to everyone. It was going to make a lot of things easier in my life,” he says.
Mr. Diwa had nearly $60,000 seized after a search that left his house in Terrebonne upside down. He signed a promise to appear in court, but has not yet received the indictment. The police told him that he risked being charged with breach of trust, corruption of public officials, fraud, production of forgery, concealment and conspiracy. He hired a lawyer, spoke a long time with the police, and does not try to escape.
“You have to take responsibility for the mistakes you made,” he says calmly.
The UPAC pressed him with questions to find out if he belonged to a network, if he had superiors who provided him with names, but he swears he worked alone. “Most of the time it was by word of mouth. You know a friend, who knows a friend, who knows a friend, and the money will travel. It will be paid cash,” he said.
“As soon as I received the training on the computer, I noticed how very easy it is. The system is really, really poor,” says the former employee.
The people who paid him didn’t even have to go to a vaccination center. Adams Diwa says he could easily log into the computer system, enter a date and location for the first dose, then the second, and then his clients could receive their Vaxicode on their cell phone.
“I was doing it very clean. I was creating a real appointment in the system, as if the person had made their appointment. A date for the first dose, and 28 days later the second dose. I had to write down the type of vaccine and the place where they had been vaccinated,” he says.
“Then you are asked who vaccinated the person. I knew nurses who worked at the stadium, I could put a vaccinator, or else you can put a place outside Quebec”, he adds.
Ready to help
Even if he didn’t, he says it would be very easy for an employee to impersonate a colleague and use their account to engage in malfeasance. “The username was two letters of your first name, two letters of your last name, then a few random numbers and everyone had almost the same password,” he says.
Adams Diwa is not vaccinated, but as his bosses put pressure on him, when he worked at the vaccination center, he entered the system and added to his file two doses of vaccine which he never had yet received.
“It’s the first thing that each administrative agent does, scan their own health insurance card to see their file. And there, we noticed that we can give ourselves a dose by clicking”, he says.
Today, he says he is ready to offer his expertise to help the government make its system more secure and limit fraudulent intrusions.
“Me, I was caught, I have nothing more to lose. I told them everything, I gave them the means to improve safety”, he pleads.
“But for sure there are other people who were doing it.”
With the collaboration of Tommy Chouinard, The Press