Criminals peddle stolen and fake UK travel documents on social media for as little as £800 

Black market British passports are being sold openly on social media.

Genuine and fake versions can be bought for as little as £800, a Daily Mail investigation shows.

One page on Facebook has been used to trade illegal British passports for at least three years.

On sale: A picture on social media advertising British passports to customers for as little as £800

We also found that passports cloned with details taken from real passports were being touted for a few hundred pounds on other easily-accessible websites. The revelations follow yesterday’s Mail investigation into how stolen British passports are spirited to Turkey to be sold by people smugglers.

David Ibsen, a security expert who advised the US government, said it was no surprise Facebook was being used to hawk passports that could fall into the hands of terrorists. ‘It is well known that extremists use Facebook as a tool to achieve their goals,’ he said. ‘The Mail is to be congratulated for exposing something that poses a genuine danger.

‘We continue to see Facebook failing to address its platform’s role in encouraging and proliferating terrorism.’

Dozens of false documents seized by an organised crime unit in Greece last month, including hundreds of ID cards and scores of British passports

Dozens of false documents seized by an organised crime unit in Greece last month, including hundreds of ID cards and scores of British passports

One Facebook page in Arabic – called European Passports For Sale VIP – features multiple pictures of British travel papers.

The site boasts: ‘We sell passports from £800 to £2,600. We are not traffickers. We’re just selling the passport and are not responsible for your travel or smuggling.’ The site says seven out of ten customers succeeded in making it past border control. But it offers entry stamps for an extra £170 to £280.

When an undercover Mail reporter asked to buy a UK passport, the seller quickly replied via the WhatsApp messaging service. He offered a genuine passport for £2,400, another at £1,700 that looked ‘90 per cent real’ and a third ‘50 per cent real’ document for £1,400.

When an undercover Mail reporter asked to buy a UK passport, the seller offered a genuine passport for £2,400, another at £1,700 that looked ‘90 per cent real’ and a third ‘50 per cent real’ document for £1,400

When an undercover Mail reporter asked to buy a UK passport, the seller offered a genuine passport for £2,400, another at £1,700 that looked ‘90 per cent real’ and a third ‘50 per cent real’ document for £1,400

The seller wrote: ‘No ordinary person can see the difference unless you put the passports together side by side.

‘But passport control may recognise the fakes so you have the choice of paying more for an original passport or paying less and taking a risk. I could just tell you the £1,700 passport and you would say it is great, but I am giving you the choice.’

He promised to obtain a passport with a photo that looked like the undercover reporter or with the option of adding an image. It was available for collection in Istanbul, where the Mail had already bought a genuine UK passport stolen from a Milton Keynes businessman.

The Facebook seller also has a Twitter page with recently-updated British and Turkish phone numbers.

Another Facebook group page – called ‘asylum seekers cargo’ – says it is working to serve displaced Syrians but is also used as an illegal market place for passports.

Travel documents have been touted on the site for at least three years, with one post from a man called Hamada Azmir in 2015 offering a UK passport for £880. The group is run by a man calling himself Ahmad Alhssani, who lives in Istanbul but comes from Mayadine in Eastern Syria.

Some refugees in the EU also use the Facebook group to tout government-issued travel documents that allow free movement around most of the continent.

A man using the name Raaed Radwan, who claims to be a student in Germany but is originally from As Suwayda in Southern Syria, posted on the site to advertise his travel documents.

He wrote: ‘I have blue German passport and ID if anyone interested contact me.’

Take your pick: Another internet site offering a range of British passports for various prices

Take your pick: Another internet site offering a range of British passports for various prices

The blue passport allows free movement around most of Europe, and to the UK with a visa.

He offered us both documents for £1,322.

After being contacted by the Mail, Facebook removed the European Passports For Sale VIP page but not the closed Syrian Facebook group. A spokesman said: ‘Counterfeit items are not allowed on Facebook as they violate our community standards.

‘We have deleted the content and suspended the admins of the groups which violate these standards. We urge people to use our reporting tools to flag content they suspect may be illegal or violate our standards so we can remove it.’

Immigration minister Caroline Nokes said: ‘Immigration Enforcement constantly monitors and identifies emerging threats in relation to the production and supply of false travel documents, including the use of the internet to facilitate the trade in passports and identity cards. We have a range of interventions to target the criminals involved, including criminal prosecution of crime groups in the UK and overseas.

‘The passport application process is rigorous and we continue to develop our anti-fraud measures to keep ahead of the criminals who attempt to get a UK passport fraudulently.’

Mr Ibsen, who is executive director of the Counter Extremism Project, said it was a clear security threat to the UK and other European countries for stolen passports to be offered in an environment where terrorists want to move around undetected.

Your identity can be stolen – every time you hand over your passport 

By Glen Keogh  

Cloned British passports using identities stolen from genuine documents are being touted for a few hundred pounds on websites available with a Google search.

The Mail was offered a British passport that bore the name, photograph and date of birth of 61-year-old barrister Aris Nicolson.

The married father of two was horrified to discover that his identity had been harvested by criminals to be sold on. His passport has never been lost or stolen, and his details are believed to be taken when he provided it as a form of identity either in the UK or abroad, possibly when the passport was photocopied at a hotel reception.

Disturbing: Aris Nicolson and his passport (left) and a copy of the fake one for sale online

Disturbing: Aris Nicolson and his passport (left) and a copy of the fake one for sale online

Security experts warned that getting hold of a cloned passport was like ‘gold’ to terrorists and criminals, allowing them to assume the identities of law- abiding citizens to fraudulently get jobs, open bank accounts and even travel in and out of the country untraced.

The fraudster who created a passport bearing Mr Nicolson’s details was touting for business on several websites easily available following a quick Google search for a British passport.

After posing as a potential buyer, we contacted the conman, who called himself Steve, via a website before the conversation moved to encrypted messaging application WhatsApp.

To prove the quality of his work, Steve sent images of a passport he said had been created by his ‘technicians’ for a ‘client’ for £1,100. He bragged that it showed that ‘business is good’.

Undercover Mail reporters were offered a British passport that bore the name, photo and date of birth of the 61-year-old barrister 

Undercover Mail reporters were offered a British passport that bore the name, photo and date of birth of the 61-year-old barrister 

When the Mail tracked down a shocked Mr Nicolson, from Windsor, Berkshire, he said: ‘It’s disturbing. I’m an innocent victim of something that is becoming a pandemic.’

It is unclear when Mr Nicolson’s details were taken. He has been abroad six times in the past year – to St Tropez twice, Paris, Sicily, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

In Sicily and Abu Dhabi he had to hand over his passport at the hotel, but not on the other trips and he didn’t use it for anything such as car hire.

He keeps his passport locked in his desk drawer at home when he doesn’t have it with him. Other than that, he used his passport when enquiring about car finance two weeks ago and for a mortgage renewal on a buy-to-let three months ago.

Mr Nicolson, who specialises in tax and immigration cases, now fears the worst – including being stopped from travelling abroad.

‘Obviously it’s outrageous that someone claims to be selling this document.

‘We live in a world of identity fraud and theft. The authorities don’t seem to know what to do about it. And I think unless credit rating agencies and other such-like people put in a place of policy that stops all this, it’s going to continue, isn’t it?’

‘Anybody could be using my identity for crime or fraud. It’s completely disturbing.’

Worryingly, the forged passport which Steve claimed to have included Mr Nicolson’s correct middle name – something he believes could only have come from a stolen document.

Bizarrely, it was included as his first name – and his given name used as his surname.

Mr Nicolson also believes the photograph used has been slightly altered, changing his appearance.

He said: ‘Not many people know my middle name, they have just got it the wrong way round. I’ve handed my passport over when going for car finance or a mortgage so if the copy has been stolen at that time then that is very worrying.

‘Unfortunately identity theft has become easy for anyone to do. But you have to have that guilty intent. You’ve got to be of that ilk, that mindset.

‘The internet breeds this sort of offence unfortunately.’

Steve also provided images of two further British passports allegedly created in the name of a British man and his Thai-born wife.

And he provided images of a French woman’s passport, accompanied by a handwritten note featuring his British mobile phone number and the day’s date to prove authenticity.

Steve agreed to sell the passport for the equivalent of £2,200 in a Bitcoin transaction. When queried over an expiry date of 2016, he said many clients accepted recently expired passports because they can then renew the documents at the embassies of their countries in Britain to get hold of fresh, legitimate versions.

Passport renewals at the London-based French consulate require only an identity photo and proof of address, according to official guidelines.

The Mail also discovered passports for sale on the ‘dark web’.

Daniel Smith, a former hacker now working for cybersecurity firm Radware, found websites purporting to sell British passports for between £570 and £12,800.

The most expensive guaranteed travel as it was allegedly issued ‘directly from corrupt immigration police contacts’, and was available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Another website asked potential buyers to state their age and gender or provide a photograph. This is so fraudsters dealing in stolen passports can match their documents more closely to the buyer.

Passengers arriving at Gatwick Airport use the 'ePassport gates' at Passport Control on the UK Border

Passengers arriving at Gatwick Airport use the ‘ePassport gates’ at Passport Control on the UK Border

A Mail reporter struck up a conversation over secure messaging app Wickr with one passport dealer who had posted on the dark web. Wickr is favoured by criminals because messages are automatically deleted after a period of time.

The man said he was based in London and could obtain fraudulent passports bearing any required details for £3,500.

Professor Anthony Glees, a security and terrorism expert at the University of Buckingham, said: ‘For at least a decade it’s been very easy to get hold of fake British passports, not least in the UK.

‘I was told by a Whitehall source that they knew of garages in south London crammed with British passports.

‘You can pick them up all over the UK. This is seriously worrying, especially because there is no evidence that we have the machinery in place to be able to distinguish between real passports and fake ones.’

Patrick Martin, a cybersecurity analyst at dark web firm RepKnight, added: ‘Anybody can access the dark web – it’s not difficult.

‘Most people don’t dive into the dark web because they’re worried that by accessing it, their actions may come back to haunt them.

‘But if you’re a criminal hell-bent on buying fake documentation, it won’t take you more than ten minutes to find what you want because of the sheer amount of stolen identities for sale.’

Mr Martin added: ‘It really is child’s play – and as more and more vendors on the dark web accept Bitcoin for payment, buyers can benefit from an enhanced level of anonymity.’

The dark web is accessed using a special browser and users have to be alert to the URLs of ever-changing ‘websites’, which appear as random lists of letters and numbers.

Three main marketplaces used by those on the dark web sell everything from drugs to identity documents to weapons. 



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