A British tourist was detained at Kraków airport after presenting a fake Covid vaccination certificate to enter Poland. The 21-year-old, who admitted he was trying to avoid quarantine, now has to pay a fine of 8,000 złoty (€1,738, £1,465).
Unvaccinated travellers arriving in Poland from non-Schengen countries must quarantine for 14 days. “In order to avoid quarantine, the man presented a false Covid vaccination certificate during checks at Balice airport near Kraków,” announced Poland’s border guard, quoted by Gazeta.pl.
After the verification procedure, it turned out that it was a valid document but issued for a different person, with fraudulent information put in place of the original personal data.
Hundreds of people queued for hours at Warsaw's Chopin airport yesterday for post-landing Covid tests after Poland's new rules for non-Schengen arrivals went into force.
The government today moved to adjust the requirements to help avoid a repeat https://t.co/aXPE9DDjCf
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 17, 2021
According to the border guard, the unvaccinated traveller was aware of the regulation in Poland but decided to board the plane anyway and hoped his false pass would not be detected.
The man was detained and, after admitting to his offence, was punished with the 8,000 złoty fine. Using forged documents in Poland can carry a potential prison sentence of up to five years.
Under current regulations introduced by the government in response to the Omicron variant at the end of November, unvaccinated travellers arriving in Poland from non-Schengen countries must quarantine for 14 days but can be released with a negative PCR test taken at least eight days after arrival.
Poland has already seen problems with forged Covid passes. In November, police detained three nurses accused of taking money for issuing over 100 EU certificates to people who had not been vaccinated against coronavirus.
The greatest number of fake Covid passes have been detected at the border with Ukraine. The border guard informed in October that more than 550 fake Covid vaccination certificates had been presented there since the start of this year.
Main image: Ben Queenborough/PinPep (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
