A woman is facing charges after allegedly running a scheme that charged travelers hundreds of dollars in exchange for counterfeit negative COVID-19 tests.
28-year-old Linda Tufui Toli, a Salt Lake City resident, is currently facing one count of wire fraud for being involved in the alleged scheme that took place at the Salt Lake City International Airport.
Toli reportedly intercepted calls from travelers who were scheduling COVID-19 tests from her previous employer, “XpresCheck,” only to cancel their appointments and falsely tell them that they only needed letters to travel to their destinations. XpresCheck has a location in the airport that provides people proof of a negative test needed to travel into places that have COVID-19 restrictions.
After diverting travelers away from XpresCheck, Toli would arrange a way for people to purchase counterfeit negative test results from her instead of obtaining legitimate tests from the business. Toli would request customers to pay for their tests by sending money to her personal Cash App or to her husband’s Venmo account, with each fake result costing anywhere between $200 and $250.
The amount of money that Toli made from her scheme has not been made available by officials.
