A quick PSA for unvaccinated folks looking for a weekend getaway: if you try forging your records to travel, you might wind up with a hefty fine instead.
That’s what happened to one Florida couple that was arrested after they stepped off the plane in Honolulu last week. NBC Miami first reported that the pair — 43-year-old Enzo Dalmazzo and 31-year-old Daniela Dalmazzo — were both charged with violating Hawaii’s Safe Travels mandates by falsifying their vaccine cards. On top of that, Daniella was slapped with two additional charges for submitting additional fake docs for each of their kids.
Those kids, it’s worth mentioning, were 4 and 5 years old — far too young to get vaccinated (at least right now). Despite the fact that many domestic airlines would let them board anyway, their parents decided to pass the pair off as two vaccinated 12-year-olds instead, with vaccine cards to prove it.
But because five-year-olds and 12-year-olds look pretty darn different, airport authorities decided to look into the authenticity of their cards. “The screener at the airport, when they came through, noticed an anomaly about the age of the children and the vaccine, and that’s how we got involved,” a representative with the Hawaii Attorney General told NBC.
Where the couple got those cards is still an open question. Earlier this week, the Department of Justice charged a Chicago pharmacist who was alleged to have sold over vaccine cards over eBay, just a month after the agency caught a California-based homeopathic doctor selling blank cards to her patients.
Violating any of Hawaii’s COVID-19 protocols is classified as a misdemeanour by local authorities and one that can saddle tourists with fines of up to $US5,000 ($6,981) or a year-long jail sentence. Hawaiian news outlets reported that the Dalmazzo’s shared an $US8,000 ($11,169) fine and posted bail. Hopefully, they’ll consider actually getting the free jab before their next family vacation.