Spanish police have charged 2 200 people with falsifying their Covid vaccination certificate. Among them is Jose Maria Fernandez Sousa-Faro, president of Spanish pharmaceutical giant PharmaMar. Only celebrities and the European elite were found listed on the indictment sheet.
According to its own statements, PharmaMar has pursued “the rigor of science” as its guiding principle. That is probably why the president bought the vaccination certificate. The 76-year-old pharma boss has a degree in Chemistry and a doctorate in Biochemistry from the Complutense University in Spain.
Ironically, José María Fernández Sousa-Faro, who founded his company 36 years ago, also made headlines for the effectiveness of its drug Aplidin against Covid.
PharmaMar shares had risen over 20 percent on the stock market after the company published a study assuring that one of its drugs was effective in combating Covid-19 and its variants in January 2022. At the end of January of last year something similar happened with the same antiviral, plitidepsin (its trade name is Aplidin), citing studies in the journal Science.
Plitidepsin had allegedly been shown to “have powerful antiviral activity in all variants at very low concentrations (nanomolar) with a positive in vitro therapeutic index”, according to Europe Press.
Buying vaccination certificates
The scammers charged an amount of money depending on whether the client requested the registration of one or several doses. In addition, two more people who received payments and acted as intermediaries were arrested in the police sting, known as Operation Jenner.
According to the Spanish media, certain people were included in the national vaccination register in return for large sums of money. Sousa paid thousands of dollars to avoid being discriminated against even though he did not get an mRNA injection.
Spanish daily El Mundo reported that the Spanish police conducted an operation and uncovered a network of “celebrities and elites” who are said to have faked getting the vaccine. The head of the network is said to be a male nurse from the University Hospital of La Paz (Madrid). He is accused of raking in more than €200 000 to put more than 2 200 individuals on the national vaccination register. The average price for a fake jab is evidently quite high.
The name of the police operation Jenner was in recognition of Edward Jenner, an English doctor and scientist who developed the first vaccine and is considered the “father of immunology”.
The network spans the whole of Europe
Australian tennis player Alex de Minaur, not quite Novak Djokovic – who has refused to take the Covid-19 shot. Wikipedia
The suspect is currently in custody. He had offered “service” with the price depending on the “social position” of the recipient. The more important the person, the higher the price. The network extended across Europe and not only affected Spaniards.
Investigations are also being carried out against many athletes: for example against a defender in the top soccer league or against Fabio Díez Steinaker, European runner-up and fifth at the Olympic Games in Sydney in beach volleyball. But these are “small fish”. Australian tennis player Alex de Minaur, 23 years old and currently in the top 20 in the world rankings, also appears on the list.
In addition to the President of PharmaMar, one of the richest men in Spain, Trinitario Casanoya, is also on the list. It furthermore includes a well-known doctor, as well as a singer and actor. There could be more names publicly known.
It is the first case in Europe of large-scale vaccination fraud being exposed among the rich and powerful, suggesting a wariness among many for the much touted statements by authorities that the “vaccination is safe and effective”. Anyone who does not want to be jabbed has been accused of “lacking solidarity”.
The case once again highlighted the social context of the EU’s harsh Corona policy: Those who had enough money and contacts in the right networks, simply bought the certificate because they did not want to tackle social exclusion and giving up bodily autonomy head on.
Many thousands of people who could not afford this luxury however, had to deal with the consequences of losing their jobs or suffering the side-effects of the shots.
