SALT LAKE CITY — A woman is facing charges after allegedly running a scheme that charged travelers hundreds of dollars to receive a counterfeit negative COVID-19 test at the Salt Lake City International Airport.
Salt Lake City resident Linda Tufui Toli, 28, now faces one count of wire fraud for her involvement in the scheme.
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Documents explain that from July 2021 through at least September, Toli intercepted calls from travelers trying to schedule a COVID-19 test from her then employer, "XpresCheck," which has a location at the airport for people who need proof of a negative test in order to travel to places with restrictions, such as Hawaii.
After intercepting a call from a customer, Toli allegedly canceled appointments through "XpresCheck" and falsely told travelers they only needed a letter in order to travel to their destination.
Toli then arranged for the "travelers to purchase from her what she knew to be counterfeit negative COVID-19 test results, instead of obtaining legitimate COVID tests from XpresCheck," documents explain.
She would request they pay for the test by sending money to her personal Cash App or her husband's Venmo account and charged anywhere from $200 to $250 per fake test result.
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"It was the object of the scheme and artifice to defraud for defendant Linda Toli to obtain money from the travelers that was meant for, and rightfully belonged to, her then employer, XpresCheck, through false statements, misrepresentations, deception, and omissions of material facts, and thereafter to divert the money for her own use," documents state.
How much money Toli made from the scheme and how many travelers were scammed was not made available.
