Utah man convicted of selling 120,000 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – The orchestrator of a scheme that involved manufacturing, selling and distributing 120,000 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards was convicted Thursday, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) news release.

Nicholas Frank Sciotto, 34, of Salt Lake City, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, three years of supervised release and a $40,000 fine. Sciotto reportedly admitted in July 2024 that he conspired to defraud the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention by selling and distributing counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards.

According to the DOJ, Sciotto made more than $400,000 in profit from this scheme.

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Between March 2021 and September 2021, Sciotto was active in the nationwide scheme, which involved selling counterfeit vaccination cards in large quantities to “several co-conspirators,” the release said. One of these co-conspirators has been identified as Kyle Blake Burbage, 33, of Goose Creek, South Carolina.

“Together, the co-conspirators enabled numerous people to use counterfeit vaccination cards to pose as vaccinated so they could circumvent public health and safety protocols across the country,” the DOJ report said. “Sciotto was part of this plan – without regard to the public health consequences or risks to which he exposed individuals during the pandemic, without their knowledge or consent, and he undermined the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccination program and other health and government safety regulations and protocols. with considerable profit.”

Sciotto reportedly charged $10 per card, with a minimum of 10 cards per purchase. Through social media, Sciotto referred his buyers to a mobile payment service to complete the transaction.

To obtain the cards, Sciotto created a fake badge and identified himself as a volunteer at a “major COVID-19 testing company in Utah,” the release said, tricking a printing company employee into believing he worked for a hospital and was authorized. to print thousands of copies of COVID-19 vaccination cards.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General and the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office jointly investigated this matter.

Anyone with information about attempted fraud related to COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud hotline at 866-720-5721 or submitting a form. NCDF web complaint form here.

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