Context: Interpol has issued a global alert to law enforcement agencies of its 194 member countries, asking them to prepare for the targeting of COVID-19 vaccines, both physically and online, by organised crime networks.

• The Interpol Orange Notice outlines potential criminal activity in relation to the falsification, theft and illegal advertising of COVID-19 and flu vaccines, with the pandemic having already triggered unprecedented opportunistic and predatory criminal behaviour.
  
  • The notice includes examples of crimes in which individuals were found to be advertising, selling and administering fake vaccines.
    
• The alert was issued on the day the U.K. authorised a COVID-19 vaccine for use from next week stating that vaccines were the prime target of organised crime.