As governments rush to vaccinate their citizens against COVID-19, organized crime groups are seeking to exploit weaknesses in the global vaccine supply chain, fueling a “parallel pandemic of crime” that has generated billions of dollars in illegal profits, according to the global police agency Interpol. “These crime types were following the virus around the world,” Jürgen Stock, Interpol’s general secretary, tells TIME. “I’ve never seen such a dynamic situation before.”
At the start of the pandemic, criminal groups focused on the trade in counterfeit masks, disinfectants and COVID-19 testing kits. But some of the newest scams Interpol is now tracking across its 194 member countries are seeking profit from COVID-19 vaccines, either by stealing real vaccines and trying to sell them on the black market, Stock says, or by marketing…