Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo A Thai worker wears a face mask to protect from a new coronavirus as he repairs Buddha statues at Suthat Temple in Bangkok, Thailand, March 10, 2020.

A group of Thai workers have used the novel coronavirus outbreak to make an extra buck, washing and repackaging old face masks and selling them as new.

The store owner told police she had sold up to 200,000 used masks.

The Thai government has since taken full control of face-mask distribution.

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In a central Thailand province northeast of Bangkok, the novel coronavirus creates an unlikely opportunity for extra cash: recycled face masks.

Last week, police and health officials found a second-hand goods vendor selling used face masks, which had been washed, ironed, and repackaged as new.

“Police found six workers sorting out used face masks and ironing them before folding them in boxes to look like new, unused ones,”The Nation Thailand reported.

The workers, all in their teens, put the masks in washing machines before flattening them with an iron and sending them to market, police said.

According to the Saraburi province police chief, the 47-year-old store owner said she sold up to 200,000 used masks. Workers earned the equivalent of $US0.03 for every mask they recycled, and they each turned out 300-to-400 masks a day.

A day after authorities found the recycled-mask vendor, the Thai government declared it would take full control of face-mask distribution across the country. The country has recorded at least 47 confirmed coronavirus cases and one fatality.

AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe In this Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020 photo, Thai public health officers operate a health checkpoint with thermo scan, targeting to pick people travelling with fever, a symptom of COVID-19 at Suvarnabhumi International airport in Bangkok, Thailand. Thai Public Health Ministry on Monday, Feb 17, 2020 informed Thais to reschedule their visits to Japan and Singapore citing the rising number of people infected by new coronavirus in those two countries.

The country is currently producing 38 million masks per month. Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Commerce Boonyarit Kalayanamit said all masks will be administered by the ministry’s distribution branch.

“We had previously allocated 45 per cent of the total production for distribution to priority users like hospitals and medical personnel,” Boonyarit told Khao Dos, a Thai newspaper. “But we found that they are being sold online, causing shortages among those who really need them. Therefore, we have to take control.”

Coronavirus profiteering is not a mere small-scale endeavour, however, and it is not confined to Thailand or even Asia.

Amazon, the global commerce company, is mired in problems with third-party vendors on the website that are ratcheting up price tags for masks, sanitizer, and other health supplies. The company has mass-deleted listings and says it pulled 530,000 products from its store and is working with attorneys general in different states to crack down on price gouging amid coronavirus fear.

“There is no place for price gouging on Amazon,” the company told The Guardian last week. “We are disappointed that bad actors are attempting to artificially raise prices on basic need products during a global health crisis and we have recently blocked or removed tens of thousands of offers.”

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