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Who made your mouth mask? Is it safe? Is the CE marking on your mask – if it is already on it – reliable? Because many suppliers of mouth masks work in a twilight zone and even use false documents. De Tijd followed their trail together with other European journalists.
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It is a transparent package with 100 blue ‘surgical masks’. They must protect other people from the air exhaled by the wearer of the mask. The suit is Mexican-made. The masks do not expire until March 2025, it says. You must throw them away after using them once. The suit contains a photo of a nurse wearing one of the masks, and at the bottom are the standards that the masks meet. It inspires confidence, but the masks offer little protection. The filter efficiency should be more than 95 percent, but is less than 31 percent. However, the masks also entered the Belgian market during the corona crisis. Our federal public service Economy has already sent a ‘serious alert’ about it to other European countries.
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Some European companies have set up a serious business selling shady certificates for mouth masks. With paperwork that is offered for 20,000 euros.
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The influx of undersized mouth masks has been incalculable since the corona crisis erupted. That cripples efforts to control the pandemic. But who is capitalizing on the unseen health crisis in this way? And how do the traffickers work? De Tijd tries to map it out together with investigative journalists from all European member states and the international journalist collective OCCRP.
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Throughout Europe, we followed the alleged certificates that can be found with the kaduke mouth masks. We already reported on Saturday how the Belgian Centexbel, the Technical and Scientific Center for the Belgian Textile Industry, was the victim of fake certificates manufactured with its logo and data. But such shadowy certificates are circulating all over Europe. Our European research shows that some European companies have set up a serious business selling those documents. With paperwork that is offered for 20,000 euros.
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The majority of the certificates pretend that the mouth masks have received a European CE marking, as you will find on many products, ranging from toys, building materials to medical devices. The CE mark, which has been in existence since 1993, indicates that a product has been tested and meets European standards for safety, health and the environment. It is noteworthy that many certificates are actually just trying to give the appearance of a CE marking, with the small letters expertly nuancing that to cover themselves legally.
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Italian company
Certificates referring to an Italian company, Ente Certificazione Macchine (ECM) from Bologna, appeared in at least 19 European countries, including Belgium. This has a long track record of drawing up certificates in the EU. But in April, the company was already criticized by the Italian regulator for misleading practices. Febelsafe, the Belgian federation of manufacturers, distributors, service providers and professional end users for safety and well-being, also warns on its website about invalid ECM certificates that have been circulating in our country since the outbreak of the corona crisis. For example, this concerns a mouth mask that refers to ECM’s 1282 identification number, while Febelsafe points out that ECM is not even authorized to certify such ‘personal protective equipment’, which in any case invalidates the CE marking. ECM papers have also been used in our country for mouth masks that had already been taken off the market elsewhere because they were not satisfactory. Even Romanian organized crime has already sold masks with ECM papers, we discovered when trying to figure out 66 ECM certificates for masks and protective suits.
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The Bologna company claims to be the victim of “blatant misuse” of its data and says it is looking for “its” fake certificates that are circulating. Although ECM also states that it is ‘not responsible’ if customers to whom it gave documents use documents incorrectly.
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Among other things, a former Chinese police officer, CS, whose companies were already subject to freezing measures, used an ECM certificate to export mouth masks to Europe. A European ‘alert’ has been sent out to warn about his mouth masks, but in Lithuania, among others, government institutions have already bought his Chinese masks. This was done through a local importer who supplied the masks to municipalities, hospitals and the army. The importer claims to know nothing about the legal problems surrounding his Chinese manufacturer. On the other hand, he sees no reason in using certificates that are not real proof of a CE marking. “They are neither valid nor invalid,” it is laconic. “They are ‘pre-certificates’ because much more time is needed to get a real certificate.”
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This perfectly illustrates the state of affairs in many European countries, including Belgium. All possible pseudo or false certificates are pulled out of the hat to be able to sell millions of mouth masks to Europeans, regardless of what the consequences may be for public health.
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Millions of pieces
The European Anti-Fraud Service OLAF informed our journalists’ collective that there are multiple investigations into false or misleading certificates used to sell masks and other personal protective equipment. To this end, OLAF works together with Europol, Interpol, the World Customs Organization and national security services, among others. “Millions have already been seized,” said OLAF director general Ville Itälä. “The products that come with the false certificates don’t work and can even be harmful to health. This not only affects individual consumers, but also pharmacies, care centers and large institutional buyers such as hospitals and prisons. ‘
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The root of the problem is a clash between complex European health and safety rules and an unprecedented global health crisis. The European Safety Federation (ESF) sector umbrella, which has its office in our country, has been monitoring which companies are all using suspicious certificates since the start of the corona crisis. “We receive up to 100 questions a day from all over Europe,” says ESF Secretary General Henk Vanhoutte. “It has gone so far that the forgers have already copied legally worthless documents because they didn’t even realize it.”
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Kaduke masks that are the subject of European warnings can still be found online, including in the Chinese web store Alibaba. A tricky issue when you know that our country paid tribute to Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma at the beginning of the corona lockdown. “I would like to sincerely thank Jack Ma and Alibaba for supporting Belgium in the fight against Covid-19.” Health Minister Maggie De Block (Open VLD) was over the moon on March 16 with half a million mouth masks, who arrived here with a large pancake ‘L’Union fait la force. Unity is strength’. The donation was made thanks to the royal family, which expressed its prestige during this crisis to open doors with Chinese manufacturers.
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On the other hand, not all mouth masks are worthless because the paperwork is not in order. A complex cocktail of ignorance of the rules and outright fraud also makes it far from easy for Belgian law enforcement officers. The federal judicial police have via its Internet investigators of the i2-IRU section, who patrol the web every day, have already identified multiple large-scale sales of counterfeit masks. As of May 25, they had already investigated 242 suspicious websites and social media posts, in addition to surgical mouth masks, FFP2 and -FFPS masks and drugs that supposedly work against corona.
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The Economic Inspectorate, which is empowered to monitor the quality of FFP2 and FFP3 masks, has also drawn up 72 reports of breaches of the quality and safety of products related to the corona crisis. There were also 71 reports of protective equipment that was faulty, especially mouth masks (54). The inspectorate has also carried out 36 checks online, mainly against the sale of counterfeit or unsafe protective material, but the majority of the websites are abroad. Only a coordinated, international approach can quell the shadowy business behind the corona crisis.
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