Author: Denis Tahiri
At the height of the pandemic caused by COVID-19, Alba Hasani, a 40-year-old (generals changed to preserve anonymity) would falsify the covid test to travel abroad.
"I paid 65 euros for the fake test. I didn't do it because I was infected with Covid, but I did it to be sure it would come out negative after I had heard that there were cases where the result was wrong. And in the event of a wrong result, I would have to stay in Albania for 15 days, which means I would also lose my job in Greece and I would have other additional costs to redo the swab ," the woman says, adding that fortunately the Greek police did not do the rapid test.
But others at the border with Greece have been subjected to the real test procedure that has confirmed the fictitious procedure followed by the citizen in question. The use of such falsified tests from June 2020 onwards turned into a disturbing phenomenon, especially for migrants returning to their countries of residence. The second ones who did not have any obstacles were the tourists who secured travel opportunities through agencies, which included the test, which many of them never performed. Although "EUROPOL" warned of the phenomenon of test falsification immediately after the first case of a traveler in France was found, in our country, despite the number of cases, there is no conclusion as to whether this trend brought a reorganization of crime in the field of forgery. Or are all the cases disconnected from each other.
Prove for a few lek that you are negative!
"I have traveled to more than 5 EU countries with a counterfeit tampon, and most of it within the Balkans," a citizen shamelessly writes on the "SINJALIZO" platform, according to whom this action is now among the most common.
And to understand how such a certificate is found on the black market, the whistleblower reveals the secret: "There are dozens of laboratories that offer this service without doing any tests. They guarantee an answer within 20 minutes."
But how openly the tests are being carried out is confirmed by one of the investigative files at the Tirana prosecutor's office that sent ordering doctors to jail. Arrested as implicated in this process, the suspects were brought to justice as part of the counterfeiting chain, and among them was the owner of an "internet-photocopy-print" shop that produced the much-sought-after letter on doctors' orders. In one case, the citizen who requested the counterfeit swab was not even in Albania and, according to conversations uncovered by phone surveillance, his associates guaranteed it by answering "no problem".
The labs showed the truth
In Albania, the Ministry of Health has accredited 8 laboratories to perform COVID-19 tests, while dozens of others are falsifying COVID tests. The General Directorate of State Police, when asked about the cases of swab falsification, stated that: “ in the last 15 days alone, 20 people have been arrested in Tirana, Durrës, Shkodër and Elbasan, and two laboratories have been seized for falsifying COVID-19 swabs.”
But what is being said unofficially is exactly the complaint that some of the certified labs filed with the local police to find out the individuals using their badge that automatically triggered the wiretapping.
Well-dressed, BK doesn't give the impression of a young vacationer when you see him at airports. The first thing that comes to mind when you see him is that he is most likely a successful young businessman or official traveling for business. In fact, it's quite the opposite, he travels for tourism in 90% of cases and what's more interesting is the fact that during the two years of the pandemic, he never used a tampon.
"I've flown with such swabs so far to Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Croatia. Bulgaria and Norway. The customs control simply looks at the name and date and everything goes smoothly. I've never had a swab for Covid ," he says, and after seeing our disbelief, he shows us the stamps taken from his passport, photos taken in those countries with the relevant dates, and how he makes the fake swab.
"To create a fake swab, I just need to have an original version of a swab performed by someone in the 'PDF' version. The date or the name of the person who performed the original test do not matter, since everything is changeable if I have the document in PDF," he says, adding that: " a friend sent me his swab performed in a private laboratory in Albania. I can process the document in any program that edits PDF. I use Adobe Illustrator. There I change the data in the document to adapt it as I need, add my personal data and the specified date," says the young man, underlining that in most cases, customs officers refer only to the printed test, but even when they scan the QR code it is almost impossible to understand that it is fake.
“ Many digital documents have a QR code. In state documents, that code is important because it refers to a state website and editing it is not easy. In the case of the PCR swab, the QR code simply has a url that refers to the laboratory website or simply refers to a website where the same swab is presented in a digital version. To generate this QR code, a simple search on Google for “QR Code Generator” is enough. Here I can create my QR code and put the link I want. In my fake document, my QR code refers the scanner to a website that presents the same document in PDF. Most customs inspectors do not even scan that code at all. Even those who scan it are satisfied with the fact that the code refers somewhere. Just like on a simple website like www.google.al .” Something simple for the witness, but for others, even though they had the same false report, they were stuck after, based on suspicions, the border police called the relevant laboratory asking whether or not the person with the data found had been tested at the entity in question. When the answer was negative, the citizen was immediately referred for the charge of falsifying health documents, which provides for a fine or imprisonment.
However, BK insists during the interview, " I don't think it's fair to pay several times more than in Europe for a Covid test, that's the reason why I do it ," he says.
QR code only for eyes and cheeks
Since the responses of the swab on the printed paper are easier than thought to be manipulated, the QR code should serve as an added element of security that the swab that a citizen presents as a document required for travel during the pandemic is really. In most cases this is not true in Albania.
A QR code has no expiration date, which means that the data placed in it will most likely be accessible even after the owner of the data is no longer in this life. But in the tampons we tried, it turned out that the personal data of the person who performed the tampon was not located in the QR code. Even in cases where they were, it was simply the same scanned document, but without additional security features to make it harder to forge.
Regarding this issue, the Institute of Public Health stated that it had no information regarding the QR code and the parameters it had to meet, while regarding the accreditation of non-public structures that have been accredited for RT-PCR tests, it made available the link to the document approved by the Ministry of Health, but not a single word of it mentions the criteria that these structures had to meet for the QR-Code.
Experts talk about the parameters of the document
Gentian Progni, an IT expert, says that the QR-code must have some parameters that make it difficult to forge it.
"Both vaccines and tests have been assigned a license plate, a unique number, which is generated by an internal WHO system and wherever you do it in the world, that number is assigned and you have it wherever you go," he says, adding that in cases where the QR Code takes you to a web page where the data of the person who took the test is not displayed along with the unique test number, it is fake, regardless of whether the websites of hospitals or laboratories appear.
On the other hand, an official of the Border Police stated that the training of police officers to distinguish whether the test is fake or correct is also a problem. But he did not leave out the negligence of the police in examining the tampon not only in Albania, but also in other countries.
In Albania, tampon prices are agreed between private parties
In Europe, there is already the possibility of testing with a rapid test that can be purchased at the pharmacy, but in Albania, this still seems far away. The only options a citizen has is to choose between the rapid, PCR or antibody test. In Germany, the retail sale of rapid tests started on February 6, 2021, where in supermarkets or pharmacies you could buy a package of 5 tests for only 24,99 euros, which means 5 euros per test.
But how is the situation in Albania compared to the region? From an observation in the region, it turns out that in Kosovo a covid PCR test costs 35 euros, in Montenegro it varies from 40 euros, this price is the same as in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Meanwhile, in North Macedonia it varies from 25-30 euros, this price is the same as the value of a tampon in Turkey. And when we talk about the price of a tampon in Albania, it varies from 50-55 euros.
Officially asked about the high price of tampons in Albania, the Ministry of Health said that it was not within its powers to determine the price of health Services in non-public institutions in the field of health and concretely cannot determine the price for performing RT-testing. PCR for Sars-Covid-2 for administrative purposes.
" However, taking into account the progress of the epidemiological situation in the country, at the beginning of the tourist season, the entities themselves recognized by the ministry for performing the RT-PCR swab for SARS-Covid-2 for administrative needs have agreed to reduce prices from 8500 to 6500 thousand lek" - says the Ministry of Health in its response.
But such a statement not only confirms that Albania has the highest prices in the region for covid tests, but even the fact that the eight entities licensed to carry out these tests have agreed among themselves to match the prices in the market, with the knowledge of the Ministry of Health. Something which is prohibited by law.
