Vietnamese businessman arrested for printing hundreds of fake Covid test certificates

Authorities in northern Vietnam have arrested a businessman for producing and flogging hundreds of counterfeit Covid test certificates as the Southeast Asian country grapples with thousands of positive infections per day.

Tran Tuan Duong was busted by Vietnamese police on Wednesday when he was caught selling six negative Covid certificates to a customer for one million dong ($43), leading to his arrest.

Duong, who runs a printing business in Bac Ninh Province east of the capital city of Hanoi, admitted that he had sold some 150 fake Covid test results to other clients, as per a police statement issued on Thursday. The 34-year old man will be subject to further investigation for his dealings of fake documents.

Vietnam is currently battling with an uptick in coronavirus cases, with rapid testing providing a means for people to move more freely around the country as regions impose measures to clamp down on rising infections.

Coronavirus restrictions in the capital Hanoi were extended last week until August 22 after cases continued to soar despite measures having been in place for two weeks prior. The eight million citizens in the capital are under a strict stay-at-home mandate, with exemptions in place for essential work in factories or businesses, emergencies and grocery shopping.

The Southeast Asian country, once an exemplar for containing the spread of coronavirus infections, is recording thousands of daily new cases, registering a record high of 9,690 on August 8 alone.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Vietnam has recorded 241,543 cases, with 4,487 people succumbing to the virus. The majority of the country’s overall caseload has been registered since April 27 of this year, tallying 237,589 infections, due to an outbreak of the highly-contagious Delta variant.

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