Sunday, Apr 11, 2010
Gulf News
Dubai Specialists with knowledge in the area of passport forgery should be posted at dedicated offices in both airports and at all Dubai border posts to crack down on this crime. This would also ease procedures for passengers with suspect passports, said a senior official.
"Most of the officials at immigration and airports are well-trained to spot forged passports, but I genuinely believe we should establish offices with highly equipped devices and recruit specialists in detecting forgery," said Forensic expert Aqil Al Najar, Head of the Questioned Documents Section at the General Department of Forensic Sciences, Dubai Police, in an interview with Gulf News.
These specialists could make an executive decision on questioned documents and passports instead of waiting for them to be examined by the forensics department at the forensic criminology laboratories.
"We have had cases of people detained for nearly a month waiting for their passport to be inspected. The procedure sometimes takes time for it [the documents] to reach us. It will take some time to train specialists to conclusively make a decision on such matters, but on the long run it will save time, money, and efforts to distribute the tasks," he said.
Over 34 per cent of the cases examined by the Questioned Documents Section at the General Department of Forensic Sciences of Dubai Police were related to passport forgery, which is the highest percentage of all documents examined during 2009.
Overall Al Najar's section handled 1,837 cases in 2009 which involved examining 194,357 documents (i.e. cheques, official documents, currencies, passports, visas, credit cards, driving licenses, and commercial products). In 2008, they were 1,790 cases coming from police stations in Dubai and some from the northern emirates and public sectors.
Of the 1,837 cases, 628 passports were sent for inspection as they were suspected of being forged. The passports belonged to 77 different nationalities. Of the exceptional cases were ones that had complete forgery, such as the removal of an entire page. The removed page is then replaced with a new one that has similar security features of the genuine passport.
Impersonation
Of the 628 cases examined, 249 cases were genuine passports, 51 belonged to their rightful owners and 198 were entirely genuine, but didn't belong to the holder (impersonation).
Many cases in 2009 that involved passport forgery were linked to rental car thefts, said Al Najar. One particular case that was interesting to his section involved five forged Iraqi passports belonging to one woman.
The passports had different names but the same identification photo which she used to steal luxury rental cars, he said. Most rental car companies request clients deposit their passports, and, in a few cases criminals take advantage of this. Some individuals who managed to obtain a visit visa to the UAE allow their friends to use their passport to enter the country by altering the identification photo.
These individuals attempt such risks to earn a living in the UAE, he said.
cases
n Passports:
In 2009: 628 cases
In 2008: 668 cases
n Overall:
In 2009, 1,837 cases which included a total of 194,357 documents inspected.
In 2008, 1,790 cases inspected.
—S.A.N.
By Siham Al Najami
Gulf News 2010. All rights reserved.
