Aaron Rouse, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Las Vegas Division, responds to a question during a media briefing at Metro Police headquarters Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017.
Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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The way the top FBI official in Nevada sees it, it’s easier to get the COVID-19 vaccine than face a criminal case for manufacturing, selling or using a fraudulent vaccination verification card.
“Quite honestly, my warning to people is, don’t engage in that behavior, don’t perpetuate it, because you’re violating the law,” Special Agent in Charge Aaron Rouse told the Sun this week. “If you’re normally a law-abiding person, why would you risk your reputation? Why would you risk prison? Why would you risk financial ruin by engaging in illegal conduct?”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Rouse added.
Not only that, Rouse said, the crimes sabotage the effort to eradicate the virus.
“We’re making sure we’re finding out who are the people that are purveying these cures, or putting out phony cards, because it undercuts and undermines public health policy.”
As the pandemic has evolved, so have criminal minds, Rouse said.
It began with the sale of fake COVID tests at the onset of the pandemic, that’s evolved into financial fraud when federal aid went out to the population, and has since shifted to fake cures and people selling fraudulent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards to those trying to bypass mandates.
The FBI, and local and state law enforcement agencies, have been probing such criminal cases since last year, Rouse said. Rouse, who touted the law enforcement collaboration in Nevada as the best he’s seen in his 25-year FBI career, said his agents are currently working COVID-related cases in Nevada, but didn’t highlight any of them, which is standard FBI practice.
However, several cases, local and federal, have made recent headlines across the U.S.
Metro Police recently arrested a man they accuse of hawking a “miracle product” to cure COVID-19, cancer and autism. The product was chlorine dioxide, which he allegedly made using a machine he utilized to clean pools, the report said.
Elsewhere, there’s a contract worker for Los Angeles County who was charged in June for allegedly stealing hundreds of blank CDC cards there, California authorities said. The Las Vegas resident is accused of stealing the documents from a vaccination center at the Pomona Fairplex, where he worked.
An Illinois woman was arrested in Hawaii for using a fake CDC card to bypass COVID travel restrictions in the island state, according to reports. The suspect’s card had misspelled the name of the Moderna jab, which instead read “Maderna.”
Also last month, a Chicago pharmacist was jailed on 11 federal counts for allegedly selling 125 CDC cards online, according to the Department of Justice.
A New Jersey woman, who used the Instagram name “AntiVaxMomma,” used the social media platform to sell fake CDC cards for $200 apiece, the Associated Press reported. An accomplice is accused of entering at least 10 fraudulent records into New York state’s database used to confirm vaccination, the report said. About a dozen people who purchased the cards also were facing criminal charges, the AP reported.
Those caught producing, selling or using the fraudulent cards is a crime punished by up to five years in prison, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford’s Office said last month.
Presented with a hypothetical of a Las Vegas Raiders game attendee using a fraudulent vaccination card to get into Allegiant Stadium, which is a requirement this upcoming NFL season, Rouse said, “Don’t do it. It’s very simple, because the fakes aren’t that good,” he noted about the quality of some of the phony CDC cards he’s seen.
“Is it really worth violating federal law so that you can go to a football game?” Rouse said. “I would say ‘no.’”
Rouse said the “vast majority” of the people working for the FBI in Nevada are vaccinated, noting that the agency has been closely following CDC mitigation guidelines. The people who’ve contracted the virus have recovered, he added.
