Man charged for setting up fake Moderna vaccine website
Scheme offered buyers chance to purchase Covid-19 vaccines ‘ahead of time’
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A Maryland man has been charged with setting up a fake Moderna website to sell Covid-19 vaccines.
Odunayo “Baba” Oluwalade, 25, faces up to 20 years behind bars after pleading guilty to federal wire fraud conspiracy, according to officials in the state.
Oluwalade and two other men created a fake website with “the logo, markings, colors and texts” of the Moderna pharmaceutical company’s website, according to the US Attorney’s office in Maryland.
The website offered buyers the chance to purchase the vaccine “ahead of time,” while Covid-19 vaccines are free in the US.
Investigators say the fraud was uncovered when a special agent with Homeland Security contacted a number on the website.
The scheme used the “Modernatx.shop”website address, while the company’s official one is at “modernatx.com.”
Authorities say that the agent was redirected to an email address and eventually received an invoice for 200 doses of the Moderna vaccine at $30 a shot, for a total of $6,000.
The agent was asked to hand over 50 per cent of the money up front and 50 per cent upon delivery, according to an affidavit in the case.
They were then given instructions on how to send a payment to a Navy Federal Credit Union account, which investigators say belonged to one of the three co-conspirators.
According to his guilty plea, Oluwalade admitted to conspiring with others to obtain access to a bank account for use in the fraud scheme.
He stated that he knew the bank account would be used in a fraud, but says that he was not aware of the specifics.
Under the scheme he would be paid for obtaining bank accounts for use in the fraud.
Around 46.1m people in the US have tested positive for Covid-19 during the pandemic, and more than 747,000 people have died.