Menace of fake passports a global problem

Although Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali’s statement on Friday that all computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC) issued by the National Database Regulatory Authority (Nadra) would be re-verified within six months has come in the backdrop of Afghan Taliban leader Mulla Mansour’s killing a few days ago, the move from the veteran Rawalpindi politician can be dubbed timely because fake personal identity and travel documents have become a huge global problem and security agents around the world have not proved very effective in checking or weeding out the menace.

Since details have gradually surfaced that the slain Taliban Chief Mulla Akhtar Mansour was using a Pakistani passport, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan got many genuine reasons to be irked.

Claiming to have blocked as many as 120,000 identity cards within just a few months and verifying over a 100 million mobile phone SIM cards, the incumbent Pakistani Federal Interior Minister is surely facing a herculean task when it comes to locating people who hold such fake Pakistani travel documents prepared by the well-oiled rackets that operate in connivance with the officials of Nadra and the Directorate General of Immigration & Passports.

Having cancelled more than 2,000 blue passports issued in violation of rules during the rule of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and having declared over 29,000 passports invalid during the last two years, Chaudhry Nisar has now gotten a huge work cut out for him.

In fact, Nisar has himself opted to initiate this massive exercise, which should have been undertaken by his predecessors soon after the 9/11 episode at least, if not earlier.

How big is the problem actually?

In early 2016, the 93-year old International Criminal Police Organisation or the Interpol, having a membership of 190 countries and operating with an annual budget of 78 million Euros, had estimated that 9,800 people had tried to cross into Europe with false documents in 2013. Since 2002, more than 40 million passports have been reported lost or stolen.

Rob Wainwright, Director of European Police Office (Europol), had observed early this year: “Document fraud is an important enabler of organised crime and terrorism, clearly. There is a whole subset of criminal activity and a criminal sector that is involved in stealing passports and producing sophisticated passports and supplying them to the criminal market.”

Europol is the law enforcement agency of the European Union.

Headquartered in The Hague (Netherlands), this agency has 912 staffers.

Government functionaries, Sportsmen and celebrities caught with phony and forged travel documents:

The practice of travelling on fake passports and other fraudulent travel documents to deceive the Immigration and Customs officials is nearly seven decades old.

In 1950, Adolf Eichmann (a high-ranking Nazi often referred to as "the architect of the "Holocaust") had used a Red Cross identity document under the fake name Ricardo Klement to enter Argentina.

This bogus travel document was issued to the Nazi official by the Italian delegation of the Red Cross of Geneva.

In May 2001 Kim Jon-Nam, the son of North Korean dictator Kim Jon-Il was arrested at Tokyo Airport. He was travelling on a forged Dominican Republic passport. He was consequently detained by Tokyo Airport immigration officials and later deported to China. The incident had caused his father Kim Jong-il to cancel a planned visit to China due to the embarrassment caused by the incident.

In September 2002, renowned Indian actress Monica Bedi and an Uttar Pradesh gangster Abu Salem were arrested and had to languish in jails of Portugal on charges entering the country on forged documents.

In 2006, an Indian Court had convicted actress Bedi for procuring a passport on a fictitious name. In November 2010, the court had upheld her conviction but reduced the jail term to the period that she had already served.

In June 2005, famous American actor, Wesley Snipes, was detained in South Africa for allegedly trying to pass through the airport with a fake South African passport. Snipes was allowed to return home because he had a valid American passport.

Snipes had starred in innumerable Hollywood movies including US Marshals, Blade, Murder at 1600, Game of Death and the Expendables 3 etc.

Quite recently in February 2016, two known American basketball players, Marcus Slaughter and Andy Panko, were caught using fake passports when playing at Spanish clubs.

A February 1, 2016 AFP news agency report by the Daily Mail reads: “A Spanish judge is to investigate allegations that American basketball players Marcus Slaughter and Andy Panko used fake passports when at Spanish clubs, judicial sources confirmed. Slaughter and Panko are accused of using fake passports from Equatorial Guinea when they played with Real Madrid and Montakit Fuenlabrada respectively to avoid being counted as foreign players due to a convention between Spain and the former Spanish colony.”

Fake documents and the United States:

In the United States black market, buying fake identity cards, fake and stolen passports, and other bogus identity documents of various countries is quite a normal routine.

With price to buy a fake identity documents listed in US Dollars, here follows a data collected from news articles, government reports and other credible sources in this context:

Average price of a stolen US passport ($3,500), Black market driver license – New Jersey—($2,500 to $7,000), Black market Nepalese passport –($6,961), Black market passport of Peru—($1,750), Black market Swedish passport--($12,200), Black market Australian passport and Visa – ($15,000), Blank United Kingdom stolen passport – ($1,642), Fake American Green Card ($75 to $300), Fake Birth Certificate for Cuba--($10,000 to $50,000), Fake Car License Plate for Cambodia--($4.50 to $10), Fake California Driver License--($200), Fake Driver License – Confiscated in New York—($1,200), Fake ID Card for Malaysia ($770), Fake New York ID Card – ($160), Fake ID Confiscated – Arizona--- ($2,064), Fake ID Confiscated from China ($1,700),  Fake ID from China—($300 for 1, $400 for 2), Fake ID Papers for American Residency – ($2,500 per set), Fake Australian Passport –($806), Fake Passport – China ($10,000 to $25,000), Fake Passport – China (with altered photo) ($3,500 to $5,000), Fake Passport – Egypt, Germany, Morocco—($6,830), Fake Passport in Thailand – ($245), Stolen ID to buy US Health Insurance—($1,250).

Situation in European Union:

According to a relatively recent January 2016 report of “Politico,” an American political-journalism organisation based in Virginia, Europe’s trade in forged and stolen passports is so out of control that the United States has asked five EU countries to act or risk losing visa-free travel rights.

The “Politico, which covers politics and policy in the United States and internationally and distributes content via television and the Internet, states: “The threat comes in response to growing alarm over the rising number of lost and stolen documents in the EU, which has doubled in five years. The number of forged passports in the Middle East is also a rising concern. Interpol has data on 250,000 stolen or lost Syrian and Iraqi passports, including blank documents. American and European security officials speak of an “epidemic” created by a spike in demand from asylum-seekers — and from terrorists like those who carried out the Paris attacks last November, two of whom were carrying counterfeit documents.”

The American journalism outlet had added: “In the aftermath of Paris attacks, the US Department of Homeland Security became so worried about the implications for screening travelers to America that it gave France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Greece a February 1 deadline to fix “crucial loopholes” or lose access to the US visa waiver programme. The programme allows about 20 million people per year from 38 countries, most of them in Europe, to enter the United States for business or pleasure without a visa.”

The “Politico” report had revealed: “The US Secretary of State John Kerry brought up this problem with Greek officials when he visited Athens in early December 2015, sources said. Just 10 days later, the Greek ministry of public order and the police had set up a joint task force which has until the end of February 2016 to come up with a plan to replace existing national ID cards with electronic versions with a computer chip.”

In India, as a January 19, 2016 report of “India Today TV’ had suggested, fake Indian passport rackets are flourishing in Delhi and other states.

The report states: “Foreigners can easily obtain Indian passport by paying for it. But what is more shocking is that there is no mechanism in place to check the racket or weed out fake Indian passport holders. Last month, when Chotta Rajan was arrested in Bali, he was found in possession of a fake Indian passport, issued in name of Mohan Kumar, a resident of Mandya, Karnataka. Investigation reveals that each such passport could cost between Rs2 to 6 lakh depending upon the urgency of applicant.”