A New York City man has been arrested for allegedly selling stolen COVID-19 tests for $135 to $200 online, the Department of Justice said Thursday.
Prosecutors say 34-year-old Henry Sylvain Gindt II of Queens created YouHealth Inc., a web service that offers telemedicine and other testings such as DNA and stress hormone levels, and falsely claimed that he was connected to labs that would test the coronavirus testing kits. Although no customers ever received their results, according to the criminal complaint.
Gindt allegedly obtained stolen COVID-19 test kits from a laboratory employee and he advertised those kits for $135 to $200 on his websites, as well as in unsolicited emails sent to consumers in multiple states. The investigation began following a tip from a western Pennsylvania resident who tipped off the Western Pennsylvania COVID-19 Task Force.
Inside the testing kits were nasal swabs to collect the buyer's samples. Buyers were then asked to fill out questionnaires regarding any symptoms of the coronavirus. They would then send their kits to an entity identified in the criminal complaint as "Lab," the Department of Justice said.
After the investigation, the U.S. Secret Service and the Pittsburgh Field Office Cyber Fraud Task Force were able to shut down the YouHealth.shop and YouHealth.me websites on April 15. The websites were still accessible and still offering other services as of Friday morning but there are no mentions of COVID-19 tests anywhere.
Gindt was charged with committing mail fraud and wire fraud, and conspiring to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.
