French police have dismantled smuggling networks trying to take advantage of a rush to buy medical supplies including face masks to tackle the coronavirus epidemic, the interior minister said on Friday.
By the end of April, police had dismantled a number of such smuggling networks, stopped scams and attempted scams to the value of more than 30 million euros , and seized 438,000 masks, he said.
The government has been criticised by doctors and opposition politicians for being indecisive on whether to require masks to be worn in public, and buying too few of them. “If this crisis has often shown the best of ourselves and enabled exceptional acts of solidarity, it has also been an opportunity, unfortunately, for some to try to take advantage of the situation, to exploit fear and the disease.”
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