Syrians Seeking Asylum in West Use Fake Passports Along the Way
ISTANBUL—Somewhere over Europe, Kassem went to the airplane’s bathroom and flushed his fake Italian passport down the toilet.
When he landed in London’s Heathrow Airport a few hours later, Kassem presented his Syrian ID to U.K. immigration officials and requested asylum. The trip wouldn’t have been possible using his actual, Syrian passport—the country’s four-year civil war has turned it into a burden for anyone fleeing the conflict.
When asked where his passport was, Kassem told the officials: “It’s in the toilet.”
While hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees make the dangerous sea voyage to Europe followed by arduous treks across the continent, some of their countrymen have used fraudulent Western passports to board planes to countries where they can request asylum. Winter’s approach, turning seas colder, stormier and more dangerous, is expected to increase the practice.
There are no reliable figures on how many Syrians use counterfeit passports to board international flights. But smugglers estimate it is 1%-5% of those heading to Europe. With thousands of Syrians making the journey, the underground market in fake travel documents is thriving, traffickers say.
In the first half of this year, Syrians also topped the list of those caught using forged documents to travel into the EU’s Schengen zone, according to Frontex, which oversees the EU’s borders in cooperation with member states. With 258 Syrians caught, Syrians accounted for more than 10% of those discovered using false papers.
For any foreign travel, a Syrian passport is only slightly more useful than a North Korean one, according to a ranking by the Passport Index. While Syrian passport holders easily obtained travel visas from most countries before the civil war erupted, immigration officials now fear they will claim asylum. Even neighboring Arab countries have imposed tight restrictions on which Syrians can enter. For most Syrians, only illicit options remain.
“The smuggler can get you in in a variety of ways, starting from the cheapest and the most dangerous to sort of the highest class and the safest,” said Frontex spokeswoman Izabella Cooper.
Besides Western passports and IDs, Syrian refugees rely on a wide range of fake documents to function in exile. Many host countries, for instance, bar them from officially registering births or marriages. Those wanted by the Syrian regime for suspected opposition ties fear visiting a Syrian consulate for any business.
Besides Western passports and IDs, Syrian refugees rely on a wide range of fake documents to function in exile. Many host countries, for instance, bar them from officially registering births or marriages. Those wanted by the Syrian regime for suspected opposition ties fear visiting a Syrian consulate for any business.
To meet growing demand, skilled document forgers have expanded their product line. Abu Qasim, like most of the traffickers operating in Istanbul, posts ads on Facebook groups for Syrian refugees, offering to arrange everything from Syrian and European passports to high school and college diplomas and marriage certificates.
Fake passports range in price from the easiest to forge to the hardest. The Spanish passport, at a cost of $1,450, is the cheapest, said Mr. Qasim, who works with a number of forgers. A French or U.S. passport is about $3,000.
Counterfeit passports often include pages filled with fake visa stamps to add an air of authenticity. Some forgers have even mastered the ability to re-create holograms, a security feature of many passports.
Of the 40 people to whom Mr. Qasim has sold fake passports, 15 have been caught by airport immigration officials, he said. Overall, only about half of those migrants with counterfeit passports reach their destinations, he estimated. Mr. Qasim himself has no office: He doesn’t want disgruntled customers to find him.
“It’s up to you and your luck,” said a 39-year-old Syrian who boarded a plane to Germany earlier this year using a fake Belgian ID bought in Athens. Turned back twice by immigration officials at the Athens airport, he finally made it to Germany aboard a plane from one of Greece’s smaller airports.
“You need to enter with confidence and feel as if you’re carrying your actual real ID. Because they look not just at your ID, they look at your clothes and your behavior.”
Before he resorted to a passport forger, Kassem, who owns a concrete factory and car business in Syria, tried for months to enter Europe legally. He applied for a Greek visa last year and then for a Schengen visa, showing he had more than $300,000 in his bank account. But both applications were rejected.
Friends put him in touch with a trafficker in Istanbul earlier this year. His photo was taken and within a week, the father of eight was handed a fake Italian passport bearing his name and date of birth.
From Istanbul he flew to Cairo where another smuggler took him to a trendy menswear shop. There he discarded his business clothes and replaced them with fitted jeans and a blazer. He was then ushered to a barber who trimmed his hair and shaved off his beard to make him look less Syrian and more Italian.
“You don’t want anyone in the airport to doubt you,” he said. After paying nearly $18,000 for fake travel documents, plane tickets and the guidance of smugglers, he now lives in Manchester, England, after being granted U.K. residency. He is working to bring his family to the U.K. to join him.
Like Kassem, Rama Khouly was persistent.
Seven months pregnant and reckoning her unborn son had no future in Turkey, Khouly, 24, first attempted to board a Europe-bound plane at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport in early 2014, using her 35-year-old Greek friend’s passport.
She was caught. A security officer told her that he knew she was Syrian, then imparted a piece of advice.
“They told me, ‘We know your situation, but Atatürk airport is very difficult for you to pass through because it has strong security. Go try from another airport,’” Ms. Khouly recalled.
Two days later, Mr. Khouly strode into Istanbul’s Sobiha Goksen International Airport, wearing a large poncho to hide her stomach. She had also darkened her hair and donned dark brown contact lenses to better match the photo on the passport. Despite the disguise, she knew she looked nothing like the woman in the photo of her Greek passport.
Nine hours later, however, she set foot in Sweden.
Ten months later, she was issued a Swedish residency card. And in August, she and her husband posted a selfie on Facebook, posing with their official Swedish travel documents.
Turkish authorities didn’t reply to repeated requests for comment about on its immigration policies and practices, and the use of forged passports.
—Ayla Albayrak in Istanbul contributed to this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting. Your comments are needed for helping to improve the discussion.