**Las fuentes que nos enviaron detalles del arresto de la joven detenida y otros detalles nos pidieron que publicara el articulo en inglés, hoy cumplimos con la petición.
**The sources who sent us details of the arrest of the Melissa and other details, asked us to publish the article in English, today we comply with the request.
MIAMI JULY 21, 2022, nhr.com —Airport employees submitted information to us that should be investigated by the Miami Dade Inspector General involving falsified COVID tests.
According to sources, in mid-July, a young woman named Melissa was detained by FBI agents based on a complaint for belonging to a chain of scammers who sold false COVID test results.
Two undercover FBI agents bought Melissa’s test results, one for $40 and the other for $30, according to the source.
The fake lab test results bore the name Nomi Health Lab Services and the Miami-Dade County seal, according to the report.
Nomi Health Lab Service is the only lab that has an exclusive contract with the county.
For our part, we have confirmed that the arrested person is Melissa Stephanie Barbery, 33, who was arrested on Tuesday, July 12, and charged with felony fraudulent use of personally identifiable information, according to the arrest report.
According to the FBI, they began investigating Barbery as early as 2021 after learning of a scheme in which she was part of a group that was selling fake COVID-19 lab test results.
The results were sold for presentation purposes by people traveling abroad and entering other countries so the buyer could avoid taking an actual test, according to the report.
A Nomi Health official said Barbery does not work for them and the test results were fraudulent, adding that they are cooperating with the investigation.
But the big question is how is it possible that Barbery had tests from Nomi Laboratories in her possession and was selling them since 2021 and was not detected by the officials of those laboratories?
And how many more like Melissa Stephanie Barbery may be involved in these scams?
Is Miami Dade County, Mayor Levine Cava and the commissioners aware of these serious cases of fraudulent COVID tests?
This is not the first time that Nomi Health has been involved in controversies, last February the state sent a reprimand to Nomi and Empire laboratories for not reporting laboratory records given to COVID patients.
According to department letters to testing contractors, Nomi Health failed to report 150,000 lab records, most of which originated between January 13 and 18. Empire City Laboratories did not account for more than 80,000 tests, primarily between December 1, 2021 and January 30.
Adding Nomi’s 150,000 test results would have increased the number of tests reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during that time period by about 15 percent.
The state has already identified about 15,000 new positive cases based on a preliminary look at data from Nomi and Empire, our sources say.
The letter to Nomi also alleged that the company submitted test data with incorrect dates, names and test results. It is not clear how many tests included erroneous data.
The lawsuit, which names Dr. Matthew Donahue, the acting state epidemiologist, as the defendant and Nomi as an interested party, asserts that Nebraska has failed to provide any proof that trade secrets are included in the report, while concealing the most of the material “including any information that supports, contradicts or explains its conclusions”.
It would be interesting to see the transparency of the mayor’s office and if the county commission asks the Inspector General for an investigation to determine if there are no more people involved in this traffic of selling fraudulent COVID tests. At the very least, the county should search for other local laboratories that can also do those COVID tests.
