A mum-of-three has been jailed for two years after selling fake Covid -19 certificates to holidaymakers at the height of the pandemic.
Fraudster Saranjeet Trina Kandola, from Leamington Spa, traded as ‘Travel Test Solutions Ltd’, a business that offered PCR tests for holidaymakers costing between £60 and £149 per person.
Kandola, 41, visited the homes of customers to take swabs that should then have been tested at a laboratory, but no laboratory tests were ever carried out and the certificates were worthless, Coventry Live reported.
A customer became concerned the certificate she received from Kandola was inauthentic and contacted Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards.
After investigating Kandola, it was revealed she had agreed to provide at least 47 certificates obtaining almost £5,000.
In order to hide her identity, Kandola 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.
She also used a fake Care Quality Commission number on the certificates.
Kandola pleaded guilty to five offences contrary to the Fraud Act 2006 and was jailed for two years at Coventry Magistrates' Court.
Natalie Berman, representing Ms Kandola, said that her client was extremely remorseful for her actions and she was struggling financially to support her three 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 added: “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.”
