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cement the legitimacy of the document (A booming industry specialising in fake passports with official visas and travel stamps is offering people the opportunity to travel to the UK, EU, Canada and the US, a Guardian investigation has found. There are several passport options, depending on the clients' ethnicity, languages they speak, where they want to go, and how much they have to spend. The cheapest documents with which to get to Europe are Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan passports, which cost about $5,000, or $6,000 as part of a Schengen visa package. The most expensive option is an EU passport, which will set a client back $8,000, usually requested by westerners and Arabs who speak some French and can pass for French or Belgian. Typically, an EU citizen arrives in Turkey on his or her own passport, sells it for about €2,500, then the passport photo is changed to that of a client. The original owner of the passport then claims it has been lost and applies for a replacement at his or her consulate. The passports are printed in their countries of origin and taken to the country where the client is waiting, where they receive official border entry stamps, which helps cement the legitimacy of the document. The passport itself relatively doesn't cost anything. What does cost is the stamps. The majority of the money goes into bribes for stamps. In the past the quality of fake passports was bad so there was a limited number of countries one could travel to. Now those passports are of such good quality that if you have enough money, you could go absolutely anywhere.  theguardian.com Alex_Odeychuk); acknowledge a document (Johnny Bravo); acknowledge an instrument (Johnny Bravo) |
