Fake passport checks being stepped up as people use Thailand to get into the West

[webfact]

Fake passport checks being stepped up as people use Thailand to get into the West

 

 

TNA reported on their "Khap Khao" news program on the issue of people travelling with fake passports using Thailand to cover their tracks to the West. 

 

Many were coming via Thailand on their way to the US, Canada, Australia, Europe and New Zealand.

 

TNA said that Interpol have stated that 53 million passports have been reported as missing. 

 

Thailand as a travel hub is being increasingly used as a staging post for people holding fake travel documents. 

 

So the authorities in Thailand are being trained to spot the fakes from the real. 

 

As far as Asia goes the majority of people found with fake passports come from the Indian sub-continent with the Middle East a distant second. 

 

A representative of the Division 2 Thai immigration explained that people who come via Thailand and not, say, directly from India have a better chance of being allowed in at their destination wherever that may be. 

 

International agencies are keen to train and encourage the Thais how to stop them in Thailand. 

 

Source: TNA

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2018-09-21

 

[wgdanson]

Why enter Thailand with a fake passport when you could enter on your genuine one, and then get a fake one done here so easily.

[Peterw42]

How does stopping in Thailand facilitate getting into another country on a fake passport ? You still queue up with everyone else to enter any country. Its not like there is a special desk at the destination were they dont check your passport because you transited through Thailand.

[BestB]

6 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

How does stopping in Thailand facilitate getting into another country on a fake passport ? You still queue up with everyone else to enter any country. Its not like there is a special desk at the destination were they dont check your passport because you transited through Thailand.

I suppose than passport has stamps from Thailand and visa making it look more legit and less suspicious 

[ezzra]

Words to the wise, check the people who are checking the passports.. 'nuff said...

Edited September 21, 2018 by ezzra

[Peterw42]

5 minutes ago, BestB said:

I suppose than passport has stamps from Thailand and visa making it look more legit and less suspicious 

I still dont get it, So you have a fake passport then risk entering and leaving Thailand on a fake passport, just to get a couple of stamps to legitimise your fake passport. I would imagine if you are in the fake passport business, duplicating a couple of Thai stamps would be easy.

[Thian]

25 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

How does stopping in Thailand facilitate getting into another country on a fake passport ? You still queue up with everyone else to enter any country. Its not like there is a special desk at the destination were they dont check your passport because you transited through Thailand.

Don't know how good the fakes are but maybe they can even use the automated custom machines? Those will just open if all is right....

[BestB]

11 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

I still dont get it, So you have a fake passport then risk entering and leaving Thailand on a fake passport, just to get a couple of stamps to legitimise your fake passport. I would imagine if you are in the fake passport business, duplicating a couple of Thai stamps would be easy.

All true but I am only guessing

[impulse]

34 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

How does stopping in Thailand facilitate getting into another country on a fake passport ? You still queue up with everyone else to enter any country. Its not like there is a special desk at the destination were they dont check your passport because you transited through Thailand.

 

Probably a lot less suspicious and more do-able than flying direct from Iran, N. Korea or Somalia... 

 

But that doesn't explain why the majority are from India...

[NCC1701A]

7 minutes ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

I knew a guy that had 6 fake passports

I assume you didn't know about the murder part and just thought having 6 passports was sort of a eccentric novelty.

[anon789561]

this has been going on for at least 20 years and they had different tricks.

i knew a bloke from southampton years ago who ended up here and on his arse.

one thing they did. they would take his passport and make a fake of it.

he said he would check into the flight using his passport, in departures he would have to meet the person to be smuggled (flies in on a transit flight so doesn't enter thailand) and he would give them the boarding pass then he would simply walk(apparently could then and immo paid also) from departures to arrivals and simply join a large queue and enter back in to thailand whilst the other person boards the flight.

apparently easier to get on the plane with crappy fake passport if already through immo and have boarding pass.

idea being that person would then flush their passport in the plane and claim asylum and have no docs on arrival in european country.

another one was smuggling girls to japan to work in 'factories'. hookers basically.

so he would book a weekend away to tokyo with his thai girlfriend, arrive in tokyo, spend a few days there and travel back to thailand alone.

that's what he got caught for, he'd done it a few times and for not a lot of money, 25k a time or something.

he'd done it about 3 times and was on his way out of tokyo and they pulled him up.

Game over, ended up in jail in japan for the next decade, not sure whatever happened to him after that.

imagine all that's much more complicated now.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Happy enough

[Oziex1]

I would believe the immigration officials in western countries would look twice at any individuals transiting via Thailand,  given the countries a seething cesspit of corruption and Ill doings. 

[zaphod reborn]

1 hour ago, wgdanson said:

Why enter Thailand with a fake passport when you could enter on your genuine one, and then get a fake one done here so easily.

Ask the thousands of Uighurs who entered Thailand without passports by paying 10-12,000 THB at the Cambodian border, picked up a fake Turkish passport, and traveled to Turkey so that they could proceed to Syria and fight for ISIS.

[wombat]

 ''53 million passports have been reported as missing''

The population of New Zealand is only 4.5 million.

[kcpattaya]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

53 million passports have been reported as missing

Huh?!

[Timebandit]

4 hours ago, impulse said:

 

Probably a lot less suspicious and more do-able than flying direct from Iran, N. Korea or Somalia... 

 

But that doesn't explain why the majority are from India...

If you were in India wouldn't you want to get out?

[allanos]

Even travelling with a fake passport via Thailand to give it some kind of "authenticity", the holder of the passport still has to pass through Immigration Control in the destination "Western" country.  Fake passports will show up once they are scanned in their purported home country.  Fake visas will show up when scanned if the passport is of a foreign country.  South African passports are a case in point.  Thousands upon thousands of genuine passports "went missing" from the Department of Home Affairs, where corruption is rife, going right up to the top.  However, to get into a Western country, especially one which is a member of the Schengen Agreement, the passports still required a genuine visa issued by such destination country Consulate.  It just doesn't fly, in my opinion, and neither does the OP article.

[bananafish]

4 hours ago, Happy enough said:

this has been going on for at least 20 years and they had different tricks.

i knew a bloke from southampton years ago who ended up here and on his arse.

one thing they did. they would take his passport and make a fake of it.

he said he would check into the flight using his passport, in departures he would have to meet the person to be smuggled (flies in on a transit flight so doesn't enter thailand) and he would give them the boarding pass then he would simply walk(apparently could then and immo paid also) from departures to arrivals and simply join a large queue and enter back in to thailand whilst the other person boards the flight.

apparently easier to get on the plane with crappy fake passport if already through immo and have boarding pass.

idea being that person would then flush their passport in the plane and claim asylum and have no docs on arrival in european country.

another one was smuggling girls to japan to work in 'factories'. hookers basically.

so he would book a weekend away to tokyo with his thai girlfriend, arrive in tokyo, spend a few days there and travel back to thailand alone.

that's what he got caught for, he'd done it a few times and for not a lot of money, 25k a time or something.

he'd done it about 3 times and was on his way out of tokyo and they pulled him up.

Game over, ended up in jail in japan for the next decade, not sure whatever happened to him after that.

imagine all that's much more complicated now.

I recently watched a 'Locked Up Abroad' episode where the guy was doing the taking Thai hookers to Tokyo scam, he didn't get caught for that though, the gang controlling him were impressed with how many times he got away with it that they gave him a promotion to transporting heroin, which is what he got caught for. Real rocket scientist. 

 

And Japanese prisons, jeez, they're rough. 

[BigC]

5 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Why enter Thailand with a fake passport when you could enter on your genuine one, and then get a fake one done here so easily.

To get real visa stamps  and stuff to make the travel document look more real. I am glad we have too many illegal migrants all over the world specially Britain 

[bananafish]

4 minutes ago, allanos said:

Even travelling with a fake passport via Thailand to give it some kind of "authenticity", the holder of the passport still has to pass through Immigration Control in the destination "Western" country.  Fake passports will show up once they are scanned in their purported home country.  Fake visas will show up when scanned if the passport is of a foreign country.  South African passports are a case in point.  Thousands upon thousands of genuine passports "went missing" from the Department of Home Affairs, where corruption is rife, going right up to the top.  However, to get into a Western country, especially one which is a member of the Schengen Agreement, the passports still required a genuine visa issued by such destination country Consulate.  It just doesn't fly, in my opinion, and neither does the OP article.

The article talks about 53 million reported missing passports. I took that to mean the passports used are real, just the identity is fake. Such passports will obviously pass all electronic scans.

[allanos]

The "genuine but stolen" passports would have to emanate from "Western" countries, like the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, etc to be acceptable either to those countries, or to any member of the Schengen Agreement, eg the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and so on. If the 53 million (and, remember, many thousands of South African passports are certainly included in that number) were from countries elsewhere, let's say, randomly, Algeria, Paraguay, Bangladesh, then they would still not be acceptable unless they held a genuine visa issued by the destination Consulate.

 

[anon789561]

5 minutes ago, bananafish said:

I recently watched a 'Locked Up Abroad' episode where the guy was doing the taking Thai hookers to Tokyo scam, he didn't get caught for that though, the gang controlling him were impressed with how many times he got away with it that they gave him a promotion to transporting heroin, which is what he got caught for. Real rocket scientist. 

 

And Japanese prisons, jeez, they're rough. 

yeah i heard they are rough. do physical punishments all day long, shit like that. they were dutch guys who organized his trips. tried to tell him, would't listen. he was only about 20 so life changer. he was always going to be screwed. came over form india with 3 other english guys where he was selling timeshares. sold timeshares here for a few months then met some boiler room guys and did that for about 6 months to a year before they were all raided then stuck in bkk with zero money even to get home. always borrowing money. came back from pattaya after a weekend once with shaved head and massive cut stitched up right across his head. didn't pay a bar girl and she went back to his room later with some guy and he bottled him as soon as he opened the door. i told him to call family to get home or teach. he chose every wrong move you could possibly take here but it was always going to catch up with him, and it did

[cnx355]

Still Thai Immigration does not link automatically the Immigration entry points to the Interpol database of stolen passports. Apparently it is a cost issue.  That is what I heard but maybe it is not true.

[Arkady]

The disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines flight revealed that Thailand allowed two Iranians to leave the country on passports reported stolen from Europeans in Phuket and they used those passports to board the disappearing plane.  Thai Immigration couldn't even detect passports reported stolen in Thailand and it was reported at that time that they hadn't invested in the infrastructure to connect with Interpol's database of stolen passports. You can understand why criminals and others find it a soft country to travel to with fake or stolen passports, as said by the Immigration officer in the video.

[upu2]

6 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Why enter Thailand with a fake passport when you could enter on your genuine one, and then get a fake one done here so easily.

Why would you want a fake passport anyway? I have at times had two passports because of work but a fake one you are just asking for trouble

[Katipo]

Ivory, gems, exotic animal parts, drugs, and people..... the hub of smuggling . One wonders how such things can go on in a country so tightly controlled by the military. It's almost, dare I say it, as if they could be complicit in such activities ?

[JeffreyO]

Wait, they're training Thai immigration to spot fake passports.  Isn't that what immigration at borders and airports should be doing... anyways!?!?

[maccastime]

No problem only 53 million passports MISSING?? 

[jgarbo]

7 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Why enter Thailand with a fake passport when you could enter on your genuine one, and then get a fake one done here so easily.

With a biometric chip,  which is now becoming the standard. That type of passport costs, even the Thai crims can do it.

[jgarbo]

41 minutes ago, Katipo said:

Ivory, gems, exotic animal parts, drugs, and people..... the hub of smuggling . One wonders how such things can go on in a country so tightly controlled by the military. It's almost, dare I say it, as if they could be complicit in such activities ?

I guess it's the same as crimes in the US  (which are now legal) , the UK (Europe's biggest money laundry). The govt looks the other way. Thailand is small time.