Investigation Service continues to take active measures in order to identify and expose persons involved in manufacturing and using forged documents - COVID-passports and coronavirus laboratory tests, reflecting negative results.

As a result of operative-searching and investigative activities, representatives of Investigation Department of Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance, exposed two cases of this type of crime in Tbilisi and Imereti, for which nine persons have been accused and brought to the criminal liability, and one of them has been detained.

Investigation determined that, in the first case, accused person prepared two forged so-called COVID -passports in a travel company located in Tbilisi, in order to avoid mandatory quarantine travelers going abroad without COVID-vaccination, each for EUR 70. He entered false information as if the recipient of the document had full course of COVID vaccination and the negative results of the laboratory tests. After that, he certified the documents with the forged, homemade wet seal of the LEPL House of Justice of the Ministry of Justice.

As a result of investigative activities, the abovementioned forged documents and stamps were seized, as well as forged COVID-passports intended for sale to other citizens and the computer equipment used for their production.

In the second case, eight people were exposed in Imereti, who, in order to circumvent the coronavirus control regulations when crossing the state border, bought and used forged documents reflecting the negative results of the coronavirus PCR laboratory test issued on behalf of medical institutions.

Investigation is underway under the first part of Article 362 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which envisages imprisonment up to 3 years.