James Warren
POLICE in La Linea with the collaboration of Gibraltar authorities have arrested a nurse for allegedly stealing and reselling the Oxford COVID-19 vaccines.
The nurse was working at the Hospital de La Linea at the time and is currently under investigation for potentially being part of a larger criminal organisation involved in unauthorised vaccinations.
Police from both La Linea and Gibraltar began an investigation after the hospital noticed doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were going missing.
Hospital chiefs also noticed inconsistences with the documentation leading authorities to intervene.
All eyes pointed to a 27-year-old nurse who was a member of the vaccination team at the hospital.
Son of a Policia Local officer and a fellow nurse, the man allegedly manipulated vaccination documents to make doses ‘go missing’.
According to the police report, it is alleged that the man falsified vaccination certificates to claim he administered the jab before the patients were officially due, keeping the doses for himself.
He would also mark people as vaccinated even if they hadn’t in order to receive more doses.
“The vaccination process, without a doubt, is very measured. But if someone is working there, and has free access to the material, stealing it is technically easy, who is going to suspect that a colleague is going to do something like that?” said one source from the hospital.
This isn’t the first time the COVID-19 pandemic has produced entrepreneurial criminals.
In Almeria, a 24-year-old pharmacist was arrested for charging Moroccan workers 130 for a fake negative PCR test so they could return to their home country.
La Linea has been struck badly with the virus, with a rate of nearly 2,500 cases per 100,000 at its peak.
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