Thailand Now Fake Passport Capital for Criminal Underworld, Terrorists
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Thailand Now Fake Passport Capital for Criminal Underworld, Terrorists


By Alisa Tang/AP Writer/Bangkok, Thailand Thursday, September 8, 2005


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"Some Westerners will sell their passports for $500 to get quick cash, and then they'll say it was stolen, so it's hard to crack down," immigration policeman Chote said.

 

The passport is then sold to an alterer, who will change either the photo, the page with biographical data or the entire cover of the book. What counts are the visas inside.

 

Thai police teamed up with a Pakistani man who acted as a buyer to catch alterer Sabananthan Kanagasabai, who carried his real Sri Lankan passport as well as at least four fakes—three from India and one from Canada.

 

His work was impeccable, but crafted with simple items such as a laminator, blow dryer, hole puncher, paper cutter and a desktop computer, all in his modest studio apartment workspace. Police found 73 fake visa and immigration stamps from around the world, including Thai and Indonesian consular stamps from Munich, Madras, Paris and Vientiane.

 

They seized from him 255 passports from 33 different countries, mostly European and Asian. He would deliver the altered passports by FedEx in a hidden compartment cut inside a children's book, Beatrix Potter's Nursery Rhyme Book.

 

A passport with visas to the United States or the United Kingdom, which are hard to fake because of stricter security measures, can sell for $2,400. A US passport with a changed photo can fetch $2,900.

 

Australian Federal Police and their Thai counterparts have set up an intelligence center to tackle transnational crime and forgery, and police from eight countries—Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia and the United States—convene with Thai police at a monthly meeting in Bangkok to fight identity fraud.

 

One European police officer said he has been stationed in Bangkok for 18 months specifically because of forged passports, which he called "a bridge to all sorts of criminality." He said forged passports sourced from Thailand emerged as a problem in his country two to three years ago. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want his identity and presence here to be known by criminals.

 

"Thailand is a country where you can buy knockoff DVDs, handbags. Passports are just another part of that industry to a degree. The mindset of the passport producer is the same as the person producing Rolex watches: It's a business venture," he said.

 

The maximum punishment is relatively light—five years’ jail time and a $240 fine for faking Thai government documents or possession of stolen property, such as a foreign passport. Chote said police are trying to exact a harsher penalty by multiplying it by the number of fake documents seized.


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