Hawaii authorities have arrested two Californians on suspicion of submitting fake COVID-19 test results to avoid a mandatory travel quarantine program.
A 34-year-old man and 33-year-old woman, both of Los Angeles, allegedly uploaded falsified negative test results to an online portal managed by Hawaii’s state government for the purposes of curbing and tracking the spread of COVID-19.
Out-of-state tourists traveling to Hawaii must quarantine for 10 days unless they have been fully vaccinated in the United States or test negative for the virus prior to arrival.
The pair, whose names have not been disclosed by local police, arrived in Lihue on the island of Kauai on an American Airlines flight earlier this week. When authorities discovered the test results they submitted were fraudulent, both were arrested. They were later released pending an investigation.
The two reportedly have since returned to L.A.
The arrest came on the heels of another incident earlier this year in which an Illinois woman was detained after traveling to Hawaii under a fake proof-of-vaccination card bearing a telling typo. The forger had misspelled the pharmaceutical company Moderna as “Maderna.”
