'This is a moral crisis': Desperate India falls prey to Covid-19 scammers

Scams, profiteering represent the flip side of an online help system that has emerged to fill the void left by the government.

Within the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak, few treasures are more coveted than an empty oxygen canister. India’s hospitals desperately need the metal cylinders to store and transport the lifesaving gas as patients across the country gasp for breath.

So a local charity reacted with outrage when one supplier more than doubled the price, to nearly $200 each. The charity called the police, who discovered what could be one of the most brazen, dangerous scams in a country awash with coronavirus-related fraud and black-market profiteering.

The police say the supplier — a business called Varsha Engineering, essentially a scrapyard — had