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The British media, Daily Mail, has managed to discover a criminal gang that forged British and European passports and advertised them on social networks.
Gangs use pictures of queen AND Buckingham Palace on social media to advertise the passports, which have biometric chips of a “high quality” sufficient to pass UK border controls.
The counterfeits contain watermarks, holograms and fluorescent security features visible under ultraviolet lights during checks at airport scanners.
According to the Daily Mail, the laboratory where the passports are made is in Albania, while the group sells to customers from all over the world.
Facsimile of British newspaper
A UK-based gang member offered an undercover Daily Mail reporter a fake British passport for £3,500 and an EU passport for £2,000.
He said: Many people came this way. (to Britain). Whatever you like. Do you like French? Do you like British? Do you like Italian? Everything.
Gang members advertise the fake passports through TikTok videos, which have received more than 17,000 views, showing Queen Elisabeth winking.
A message in Albanian says: Contact anyone interested in European passports suitable for passage to England.
The Mail reporter, posing as someone hoping to pick up relatives in Britain, contacted gang boss ‘Nic’ who communicated via a video call from his home in Albania.
He put the Daily Mail reporter in touch with his cousin, who said he now lives in Birmingham after arriving on a false passport.
“I had the same passport and now I’m in the UK”, he said.
He added that his cousin in Albania was a ‘serious’ operator and had made fake passports containing biometric chips to ensure they would pass security scanners.
“In the mini-chip you have all the information, name, nationality, date of birth, how tall you are, last name. he explained.
He sent videos of his cousin making the passports.
Another counterfeiter advertises the ‘newest passports on the market with all security features’ via a group on the Telegram messaging service.
The posts include a video of a woman scanning a fake UK passport through a computer, with a caption: “English passports with super high quality chips and data displayed in the system”.
The gang told the reporter posing as a citizen that UK passports sell for £3,500, plus delivery charges.
They say they are selling European passports for £2,000, noting that fake Slovenian versions are popular.
In one video, a gang member posted a picture of a fake Slovenian passport and a card with the same name for a Ryanair flight from Spain to Stansted on December 31, with the comment: “New Year’s offer”.
The gang’s ‘client’ said his passport was carefully checked at the airport, including a computer scan, which ‘came out fine’.
Other posts show customer cards and fake documents used to fly to Leeds and Manchester.
When the Mail contacted gang members posing as a potential UK-based customer looking to pick up relatives from Spain, they were directed to their UK-based agent.
The person, who said he was called ‘Jimmy’, told the reporter via WhatsApp that he entered the UK ten years ago using a fake passport and now lives in Luton.
He guided her step by step on how to use a fake document.
The gang also advertises fake UK driving licenses and British visas. He said he could produce birth, marriage and Covid certificates.
Another group, called pasport.idcard.albania with more than 3,000 followers, posts videos showing a plane to England and footage of a fake passport that says: Crossing to England with international passports, super price, super fast. Get in touch.
And an Instagram page features pictures with a bio message saying: We offer high-quality passports, ID cards or EU driving licenses to get to Britain or use in the EU.
The site also offers packages including an ID card and driving license for £800 and a passport, ID card and driving license for £2,000.
“The documents are of high quality… made in Ireland.”
Dr Ben Greening, from Migration Watch UK, told the Daily Mail: This is shocking confirmation of the sophistication with which criminals are now plying their counterfeiting trade. The idea that someone could buy a fake British passport for £3,500 points to widening ‘holes’ in UK border security. If the government does not take law enforcement and border control seriously, this threat has the potential to grow, with a risk of worsening security for UK families.
The National Crime Agency has warned that fake identity documents that allow fraudsters to enter the country undetected are the number one crime in Britain.
Recent figures revealed that almost 2,000 false identity documents used to try to enter Britain are detected by Border Force each year.
TikTok removed and permanently banned the pages after being notified by the Daily Mail.
A spokesman said: Criminal activity has no place on TikTok. Our community guidelines prohibit any content that depicts, promotes or enables illegal activities. Any content found to be in violation of these policies will be removed immediately and action will be taken against the accounts.
A spokesman for the Passport Office said: Producing false passports is a crime and those who attempt to cheat the system will face the full consequences of the law. We are aware that criminals use social media to sell fraudulent items and we expect companies to crack down on them and take them down.
“Our inquiry comes as the immigration issue gripped the Tory leadership race at the weekend. It also emerged last week that shocking blunders had allowed hundreds of Channel migrants to disappear without a trace, sparking security fears. Serious failings in the way arrivals were processed at Dover meant that in many cases their identities were not properly recorded”, according to the Daily Mail.
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