Two men have been jailed for running a fraudulent scheme that sold more than 2,000 fake Covid-19 vaccination "passports" during the pandemic, in a case described by investigators as a cynical abuse of the healthcare system for financial gain. Waqas Hanif and Touqir Nasir advertised the bogus documents online, charging clients up to £150 each, allowing unvaccinated people to falsely claim double-jabbed status in order to travel abroad or attend events, potentially putting public health at risk during the crisis.

Hanif, 28, exploited his role as a vaccination programme co-ordinator at Kingsway Health Centre in Luton, using his administrator access to the NHS's Pinnacle system to generate false records; 2,663 suspicious entries were traced to the centre, with 1,875 linked to his home address. He was found with a safety deposit box containing £136,405 in cash. Nasir, 31, laundered funds through a bank account opened under a false identity, receiving around £56,000 in small deposits believed to be payments for fake records. Both were sentenced at Luton Crown Court following a joint NCA and NHS England investigation, with Hanif jailed for three years and Nasir given a ten-month suspended sentence plus a six-month curfew.