PALERMO, Italy, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Anti-vaccination holdouts in Sicily paid a nurse to give them fake COVID-19 jabs in order to obtain a health certificate that is mandatory for some professions, police said on Tuesday.
Three people, including the nurse and a local leader of the movement known in Italy as 'No-Vax,' have been arrested and face charges of corruption and forgery.
Police used a hidden camera to film the nurse at a major inoculation centre emptying the vaccine syringe into a tissue before briefly putting the needle into the arm of the recipient.
Around a dozen health passes were obtained in this fashion, including by a policeman. Local media reported that people paid up to 400 euros ($450) each for the service.
"We have uncovered the dark and fraudulent plots of these die-hard, No-Vax people who do not hesitate to break the law," Palermo Police Commissioner Leopoldo Laricchia said in a statement.