A mum-of-three has been jailed for two years for conning holidaymakers into paying for fake Covid ‘fit to fly’ certificates at the height of the pandemic. Saranjeet Trina Kandola traded as ‘Travel Test Solutions Ltd’, a business that offered PCR tests for people costing between £60 and £149 per person.
But customers became suspicious the certificates they had received were fake, and so Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards launched an investigation. The Leamington Spa company, which advertised on social media, visited the homes of customers to take swabs that should then have been tested at a laboratory, reports Coventry Live.
However, no laboratory tests were ever carried out and the Covid ‘free’ certificates issued were worthless. An investigation uncovered that over a 17-day period, Kandola had agreed to provide at least 47 certificates obtaining almost £5,000. She only stopped marketing her services when she found out she was being investigated by Trading Standards.
It was found that certificates provided by the business stated testing had been carried out by a Coventry-based laboratory and were negative for Covid-19. However, the laboratory told the Travel Test Solutions customer who contacted them that they had not conducted any work for the business.
In order to hide her identity, Kandola, 41, of South View Road, used a PayPal account in the name of her ex-partner. She set up a website using a fake name and set up a limited company in the name of another person. And to give the business a further air of legitimacy she used a fake Care Quality Commission number on the certificates.
Officers from Trading Standards were first alerted to Travel Test Solutions Ltd on December 21, 2020, and contacted the business on the same day, leading to the business stopping trading immediately. At Coventry Magistrates' Court Kandola pleaded guilty to five offences contrary to the Fraud Act 2006. Sentencing took place at Coventry Crown Court last week when Kandola was jailed for two years for her fraudulent crimes.
Prosecuting counsel, Eleanor Lake, asked the court to consider the risk of harm that might foreseeably have been caused by the actions of Kandola in providing fake negative Covid certification to allow people to travel abroad, at a time when the world was experiencing unprecedented lockdowns, deaths and strains on health services during the Covid pandemic.
In mitigation, Natalie Berman representing Ms Kandola said that her client was extremely remorseful for her actions and accepted that the offences she had committed were, in any view, despicable against the background of what the world was experiencing at that time. Ms Berman stated that Kandola was struggling financially to support her three children, she did a stupid thing that she knows will have huge implications for her and her children.
Sentencing Kandola, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano said: “In terms of culpability there can be no doubt whatsoever that this is high culpability, sophisticated offending. It was fraudulent from the outset. You set up a company with the purpose of providing false certificates for money, you had access to a postal address, you posed as other identities, you used your ex-husband to purport to make him a director, set up a website, provided false certificates, carefully designed to look genuine. You only stopped offending when it was clear Trading Standards were investigating.
“In December 2020 the world was wracked by a deadly virus. 70,000 people died in the UK in 2020 and continued to die in their tens of thousands. A worse death count was only avoided by brutal lockdowns that separated families and ruined businesses. The effects and measures to contain it are incalculable. It was in this context that you chose to take advantage of the system by giving false results to make money.
“The seriousness is not the £5,000 you obtained – I have no doubt had Trading Standards not become involved you would have carried on offending and made a great deal more. You determinedly undermined the restrictions put in place to stop the spread of the virus for your own financial gain. You were prepared to risk spreading this deadly disease to make money. It is difficult to think of a more cynical way to take advantage of the global crisis or a more contemptuous way to undermine the sacrifice made by others.
She continued: “The message must go out that if a person using the opportunities of an international crisis and acts in a way that is designed to undermine restrictions and in so doing deliberately risks the health and wellbeing of countless others, they must go to prison. To decide otherwise would be an affront to those who worked and suffered hardship to manage a situation unparalleled in our lifetime.“
Kandola was also disqualified from being a company director for seven years and was ordered to pay compensation to one of the victims. Warwickshire County Councillor Andy Crump, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety, said: “It is unbelievable that someone should seek to attempt to scam holidaymakers in this way, leading people to believe that they were Covid-19 free when they could very well have had the virus. I’m delighted that Warwickshire Trading Standards Officers acted quickly to uncover this fraud and prevent other holidaymakers from losing out.”
