The self-proclaimed “AntiVaxMomma” was among 15 people charged Tuesday in what the Manhattan District Attorney’s office described as “a fake COVID-19 vaccination card conspiracy.”
Stephanie Clifford, 31, allegedly sold 250 fake cards on Instagram for $200 each. Thirteen people who purchased the cards were also charged. They all worked in environments where vaccination is particularly important, including hospitals and nursing homes.
For an additional $250, Clifford would have an associate, 27-year-old Nadayza Barkley, add a customer’s name to the official New York state vaccine database. Barkley, who works at a medical clinic in Patchogue, fraudulently added ten names to New York State Immunization Information System. She has also been charged.
Clifford, of Lyndhurst, NJ, openly marketed the fraudulent cards using the Instagram handle @AntiVaxMomma. She faces two felony counts and one misdemeanor.
“We will continue to safeguard public health in New York with proactive investigations like these, but the stakes are too high to tackle fake vaccination cards with whack-a-mole prosecutions,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said in a statement. “We need companies like Facebook to take action to prevent the fraud happening on their platforms,” he added.
The New York Times describes the wider black market for fraudulent vaccination cards:
With only about 52 percent of the country fully vaccinated and a significant minority of Americans skeptical of the vaccines, forged cards are offered up on messaging services like Telegram and WhatsApp, as well as social media platforms like Instagram. Counterfeits have been spotted for sale on Amazon and Etsy.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said this month that its officers in Memphis had seized more than 3,000 forged cards in 2021 so far. Earlier this year, the National Association of Attorneys General sent a letter to the heads of Twitter, Shopify and eBay asking that they take immediate action to halt the sale of the fake cards on their websites.