Interesting times

This pandemic times are good times for fraudsters to lay down and pursue their plans for frauds.

It is during these times when the fraudulent contracts are signed; the emergency of measures to implement dictate the success of such actions. Products, mainly those related to medical and health sectors are pushed forward, and the usual scrutiny goes hanging, because of the emergency. This way, products sub-par or downright counterfeited are imported, sold and distributed nationwide.

Who’s to know, and to be perfectly honest, why should anyone be bothered, are not questions to be bluntly asked at this time, I believe. Apart from the regulating authorities and a few NGO’s, nobody has the minimum set of expertise and power to stop such actions; the authorities do not have the slightest interest in taking measures, because it’ll cost them dearly if the market is not supplied (politically mainly), the NGO’s do not have the effective power to do more than blow the whistle, if they care.

This is one explanation on why the Romanian market has been flooded with generic face masks from China, even prior to the contagion; obviously, a good portion of the imported goods are non-conform and altogether missing the official CE stamp. And the examples could go on.

Basically, what you have is a deregulated market, with all the benefits of the speed and none of the certainty those products imported and distributed are what they should be.

As long as this epidemic continues, no state authority would scrutinize 100% a company suspected of fraud, if that company is part of an important supply chain for products missing in Romania at this time. That company’s contacts on the international market helps the government to identify and import large quantities of medical supplies into Romania; without these, the government’s political shares will plummet, spelling disaster for the coming elections. Therefore, it follows that if there are no supplies on the market for the population, no political gain. What sort of products are these, their quality, price, point of origin, these are questions better not asked, at least at this time.

Silence is today’s word. Keep silence regarding where you bought it from, at what cost, if the public tender was legally activated and won, what are the requirements of the purchasing contract, and so on. Nobody says anything, nobody seems to care. Even with a faulty and (somewhat wanting) public tender system such as the Romanian one is, things were pretty much scrutinized and acted upon, if the contracts were visibly non-legit. Nowadays, nothing of the sort happens. Perhaps later on, but this is always a matter of conjecture and opportunity, most of the time political ones.

As said, we live in interesting times.