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| Southeast Asia |
| Thailand grapples with 'massive' fake and stolen passport racket |
| 2014-03-11 |
| [The Peninsula] With huge numbers of visitors and patchy law enforcement, Thailand has a booming black market for fake identity documents, and it was here that two passengers on a missing Malaysia Airlines jet were apparently able to get hold of stolen passports. Thai authorities struggle to track thousands of lost or stolen passports each year. Some are known to be sold on through syndicates to narcos. Others are suspected to have ended up in the hands of Islamist Death Eaters. "Fake passports and identity fraud in general is a massive problem in Thailand," police commander and Thailand's Interpol director Apichart Suriboonya said. Sometimes documents are sold by their owners to cover travel costs, Apichart said. They are passed on to middlemen, Thai or foreign, who work with criminal networks, he said. The passports may be altered, for example with a new photograph, but sometimes the fraudulent user hopes to pass as the real owner. The passenger manifest issued by Malaysia Airlines included the names of two Europeans -- Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi -- who were not on the plane. Both had passports stolen on the Thai holiday island of Phuket. The passports were used to buy tickets from travel agents in the resort town of Pattaya, to Beijing and on to Europe. Thai and foreign Sherlocks were questioning staff at one travel agent yesterday. Thailand's fake document business has been flourishing for years. In 2010, Thai and Spanish authorities enjugged Book 'im, Mahmoud! suspected members of an international ring providing forged passports to Death Eaters. Thai authorities say the ring may have passed fake documents to those behind the Madrid train bombings in 2004. Pockets of Bangkok are notorious counterfeit goods emporiums with fake drivers' licences, press cards and airline cabin crew identity cards on display. The Thai capital also boasts experts in forging visas. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said more than 60,000 passports -- both Thai and foreign -- were reported missing or stolen in Thailand between January 2012 and June 2013. Police in Phuket said Maraldi reported his passport stolen in June last year, while Kozel's passport was reported stolen in March 2012. Police said they get reports of up to 10 lost passports a month in the province. Phuket police officer Angkarn Yasanop said foreigners can earn $200 to sell their passport and then report it stolen. Many lost or stolen passports end up with Thais and other Southeast Asians trying to migrate for work, he said. Interpol's stolen and lost travel documents database contains 40 million records from 167 countries but its secretary general, Ronald Noble, says not enough countries are using it. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 I lost my passport in Germany in the 1970's. Interesting that I noticed the old American guy next to me at the consulate counter being catered too (poor guy! we understand how you can lose a passport) while I got the 3rd degree; it was obvious they thought I'd sold it (undoubtedly because of my age). I wouldn't even know where to sell a passport, and have never been greedy enough to try it if I could have found out. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2014-03-11 16:19 |
| #1 In the mid 70s, I was in Tangier (don't ask) and was in the Suq with a lady friend when one of the shopkeepers offered me $1,500 for my Official passport and $500 for my Tourist passport (How he knew I had an Official passport has bothered me for years). He went on to say it was a thriving business in Tangier as many American students looking for good Hashish could sell their passports for more drug money and get a new one reporting the old one stolen. I reported this all to my superiors and got the "Sea Bee salute" in return for my discomfort with the market in US passports and the security threat it presented (this was during the Red Army Faction/Baader Meinhoff/Carlos days and it still bothers me... I bet half the lost passports in Europe are either stolen or sold. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2014-03-11 15:19 |