Report: Stockpile of 39 Million Masks Exposed as Fake

Boxes of N95 protective masks for use by medical field personnel are seen at a New York State emergency operations incident command center during the CCP virus outbreak in New Rochelle, N.Y., on March 17, 2020. Mike Segar/Reuters

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—A major California labor union that claimed to have discovered a stockpile of 39 million masks for health care workers fighting the CCP virus was duped in an elaborate scam uncovered by FBI investigators, according to a newspaper report Sunday.

Investigators stumbled onto the scheme while looking into whether they could intercept the masks for the Federal Emergency Management Agency under the Defense Production Act, the U.S. attorney’s office said on April 10.