Coronavirus - And The Criminal World !

This Pandemic phenomenon sparked a rush of panic buying.  Crowds of people rushed the supermarkets buying insane quantities of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, face masks and food that will not deteriorate in storage for a long period of time.   There was a similar panic buy of chemist items and as a result shoppers are now finding bare shelves and quantity buy restrictions have been imposed.

Australia is on a virtual war footing as it tries to limit the spread of a deadly virus and inevitably the conditions are right for the emergence of a price gouging black market.  The criminal world will see this as an opportunity to exploit shortages and the internet is the ideal way to connect the seller with the buyer. We have laws in place to stop the hiking of hard to get theatre tickets, but they do no apply to general merchandise and we will need specific new laws if this is to be brought under control.

The measures taken to restrict crowd numbers and force isolation will move many businesses to the point of closure and the government is handing out subsidies to keep them open.  It is again evident that criminals will exploit this opportunity with magnified claims and the need for speed will hinder the close investigation of each claim.   It is more important to get the money flowing to keep jobs filled and the work to weed out fraud will be left until later.

What is extraordinary is the length that people will go to set up a new criminal endeavour.  A Sydney couple have just been charged with an intricate day care scam that defrauded the Commonwealth government of four million dollars.  Seventeen people have so far been charged for complicity in making a day care centre that did not exist seem real and some were the parents of children supposedly attending that mirage.

This bogus day care centre was the brainchild of a man and his wife who enlisted others in a complicated criminal enterprise.  It even involved time sheets filled out to support day workers and a roster of children supposedly under the care of the centre, and it is likely that more charges will be laid as the investigation goes deeper.

Right now money is being handed out without the necessary legislative safeguards being in place to check the bona fides of the applicants.  That is of necessity, and later the necessary investigators will take a long look at how things worked out.

Eventually, this Conaravirus will have run its course - and then some interesting questions will need answers  !