Thailand Arrests Iranian for Alleged Passport Forgery

[Jacob Maslow]

Thai authorities announced the arrest of an Iranian on Wednesday who is allegedly the head of one of the largest passport forgery rings in Thailand. Police and the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) seized 1,053 stolen passports from 60 countries and forgery equipment during Sunday’s arrest.

Police apprehended Murel Gurat at a home in the Chonburi province. DSI had been investigating Gurat for two years before the arrest was made. According to Col. Songsak Raksaksakul, Gurat’s network had been working in Thailand for over a decade, and is linked to the Pakistani and Bangladeshi forgers Thai authorities arrested earlier.

Authorities stated that the group purchased, sold and forged passports for people who wanted to travel to a third country. Officials are primarily concerned about transnational and terrorism crimes.

Gurat, 45, may be facing up to 10 years in jail for multiple charges, including receiving stolen property and forging passports and stolen documents. Thai officials also stated that Gurat had a fake passport under the name Esrafil Bondar. Thus far, no attorney has stepped forward to represent Gurat.

This isn’t the first time Thailand has been in the spotlight for forged documents. Last year, two passengers on the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 had boarded the aircraft with stolen passports from Thailand.

Police also arrested a 29-year-old Iranian man, Alireza Motevalli, at the Thai-Laotian border on Monday who was allegedly trying to cross the border with a fake passport. After searching Motevalli’s bag, authorities found the man’s Iranian passport. Motevalli confessed to hiring someone to obtain a fake passport in Thailand last month.

In addition to Motevalli, four Indian nationals were arrested on Sunday at Suvarnabhumi airport for trying to board the plane with forged Australian entry visas. The suspects confessed to purchasing the forged visas from a Thai man for 230,000 baht each. The men have been charged with using false documents.

-- 2015-03-19