Three Charged Over Fraudulent Vaccine Website
Three men in Baltimore County have been accused of impersonating Massachusetts pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna to sell fake COVID-19 vaccines.
Twenty-two-year-old Owings Mills resident Kelly Lamont Williams, together with cousins and Windsor Mill residents 22-year-old Olakitan Oluwalade and 25-year-old Odunayo Baba Oluwalade, also known as Olaki and Baba respectively, were arrested on February 11.
A criminal complaint unsealed yesterday accuses the trio of copying the source code of the genuine Moderna website (modernatx.com) and using it to create a similar-looking spoof website, modernatx.shop.
A vaccine (mRNA-1273) created by Moderna was authorized on December 19, 2020, by the FDA for emergency use in the United States to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 18 years of age and older. Via the fraudulent site, the three men allegedly sold hundreds of fake COVID-19 vaccines at $3