Inside the black market where multimillion dollar orders for N95 masks lead to empty warehouses

Business Insider

April 5, 2020 4:47 PM

Florida's top emergency management official Jared Moskowitz raised eyebrows earlier this week at a press conference when, with Gov. Ron DeSantis at his side, he vented his frustrations at the Wild West facing states trying to procure desperately needed medical supplies.

mount sinai N95

In blistering terms, Moskowitz described state governments chasing after ghost caches of protective masks and other critical medical equipment dangled by under-the-radar political operatives and mysterious middlemen who seem to be taking advantage of the biggest global health crisis in a century.

"The N95 private market right now is like a Ponzi scheme," Moskowitz told reporters on Monday, using the technical term for respirator masks that filter 95 percent of airborne particles. "All day long we try to find these masks. We're talking to brokers. We're talking to distributors. We're talking to medical salespeople. We're chasing down warehouses only to get there to find out that they're empty."

"We're being told these supplies are on planes only to see that they're phantom planes, chasing ghosts when they don't appear on FlightAware," the former Democratic state legislator continued. "We're constantly engaging in bidding wars, being asked to wire money to accounts that were set up that very same day with email addresses that were created only a couple of days ago."

Moskowitz didn't offer more specifics. But Business Insider has uncovered details of a scheme that he may have been referring to: Just a few days before the press conference, Moskowitz's office had become ensnared in what insiders say was an attempt by a mysterious broker to trick Florida into agreeing to buy two million of the highly-prized masks for the exorbitant price of $13 million.

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