Nicholas Sciotto, 32, allegedly managed the fake vaccination card operation out of Utah when he lived in Weber County, selling cards for around $7.50 to $10 each between March 2021 and September 2021.

At that price range, Sciotto could have theoretically grossed between $900,000 and $1.2 million, if, as alleged, he sold 120,000 fake cards.

Both Sciotto and Kyle Burbage, 32, of Goose Creek, South Carolina, face single counts for allegedly defrauding the U.S. government and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a press release Thursday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Salt Lake City.

Both were to have appeared in court on Thursday. Federal online court records from Friday, though, indicate a court summons for Sciotto was returned unexecuted.

“As alleged in the indictment, most of Sciotto’s buyers lived in New York where they were subject to more stringent COVID-19 vaccine restrictions,” reads the press release. According to charging documents, he sold the cards to buyers “who sought to evade government health and safety protocols by pretending to have received a COVID-19 vaccine without ever receiving one.”

Sciotto also allegedly sold fake vaccination cards to Burbage, who authorities say subsequently resold or distributed them to others in South Carolina “at a time when the counterfeit cards had a market value of $50 to $100 each,” read charging papers.

Sciotto used Facebook to manage sales, charging $10 a card for orders of 10 or more cards and $7.50 per card for orders of 100 or more cards. A photo in federal papers shows a smiling Sciotto holding purposed fake vaccine cards with more on a table in front of him.

The scope of the alleged conspiracy “seems unprecedented,” reads a federal filing in the case. “Through their actions, the defendants undermined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s efforts to distribute and administer authorized COVID-19 vaccines and COVID-19 vaccination record cards through approved vaccine distributing entities, and undermined other government health-and-safety protocols and regulations in New York and elsewhere. They did so in the middle of a global pandemic. And they did it largely, if not exclusively, to make money.”

The Sciotto and Burbage case is “part of a nationwide coordinated law enforcement action by the Department of Justice to combat health care fraud related to COVID-19,” reads Thursday’s press release. In all, federal officials on Thursday announced criminal charges against 18 people across the country.

“These cases allegedly resulted in over $490 million in COVID-19 related false billings to federal programs and theft from federally funded pandemic programs,” said the U.S. Attorney’s Office statement.