LONDON: An expansive online industry providing Daesh members with fake passports and official travel documentation is allowing terrorists to escape Syria and come to Europe and the US, an investigation has revealed.
The EU is the most popular destination for Daesh members, but some have traveled to Mexico and on to the US on fake Russian passports, as well as to Ukraine, Afghanistan, Niger and Mauritania, according to the investigation by The Guardian.
The newspaper identified at least 10 cases in which Daesh members entered Turkey from Syria illegally, purchased passports for up to $15,000 from an Istanbul-based extremist network, and departed from Istanbul Airport.
The findings are likely to fuel fears that Daesh members are leaving the Middle East undetected by security services, posing a significant threat in the countries they end up in.
An Uzbek who runs one of the most successful networks told The Guardian: “I do not ask about which group someone is with. I am willing to work with anyone. It is not my job to see who is bad and who is not. The security services should deal with it.”
In 2015, Western officials warned that the then-growing “caliphate” had acquired equipment such as blank passport books and printers that could be used to make Syrian and Iraqi passports for fighters to travel overseas with.
While border agencies have since invested in technology to root out the fakes, the investigation revealed that passports made by the counterfeiters could evade airport security and pass undetected.
In some cases, EU citizens arrive in Turkey and make contact with the network. They then sell their passports for around €2,500 ($2,786) to the extremists, who edit the photo and sell the passport on to a client for up to €8,000.
The original seller then claims they lost their passport and proceeds through the official process to recover it.
“In the past the quality of passports on the market was bad so there was a limited number of countries one could travel to from Syria,” said one seller.
“Now those passports are of such good quality that if you have enough money, you could go absolutely anywhere.”
The high-quality fakes are advertised on encrypted messaging channels such as Telegram and Signal, in which they are shown to pass tests designed to prevent forgery.
A source at the US Department of Homeland Security told The Guardian: “There is a particular seller in Turkey who provides IS (Daesh) members with very high level (i.e. well-forged) documents. We are aware of IS members using these fake passports to cross to Europe, and European security is not successful in arresting them all.”
The fraudsters currently make the most profit from fighters looking to leave Syria, but they are now looking to expand to new frontiers.
In a Telegram channel dedicated to Kurdish-administered Al-Hol camp in northern Syria for the families and children of Daesh fighters, a foreign woman detained in another camp nearby posted: “If you need fake documents from Russia, Central Asia, Turkey, Europe, DM me.”
