Dubai - Last year, 1069 cases of fake passports were detected by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigner Affairs (GDRFA).
Published: Wed 1 Mar 2017, 8:03 PM
Next time you pass through Dubai's Passport Control at the airport, remember, there's no escape for fake documents.
"If the passport is fake, the person who is holding the fraudulent document is handed over to the authorities and the minimum punishment is that he cannot enter the UAE again. He will be blacklisted. In case he is leaving the country, he will be stopped and handed over to the Police," said Aqil Ahmad Alnajjar, Director of the Document Examination Center.
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Steps to detect fake passports
1. The document is first checked by one of the 1,700 first-line officers who are deployed by the GDRFA across the counters. The machine used by them, known as 'retro-check', has three functions - ultraviolet light, transmitted light and magnifier. These functions are good enough to help the first-line officers detect at least 70% of the counterfeit passports.
2. If the first-line officers are in doubt, the document is transferred to a team of 18 second-line officers. About 3 to 4% of the passports doubted by the first-line officers are found to be counterfeit by the second-line officers, said Alnajjar.
3. The document is then checked by examiners at the main centre, located at Dubai airport's Terminal 1. The examiners look at various attributes such as the background, printing technique, among others.
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Almost 66 per cent of the cases detected by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigner Affairs (GDRFA) are imposters, where the passport doesn't belong to the passenger. The remaining are cases of tampering with the passport - either partial or complete.
"Now we are having a very advanced course to know if the photograph belongs to the person who is carrying the passport. Our first-line officers are well-trained in this regard. They can tell in a matter of seconds by looking at certain facial features such as the shape of the eye, face, the nose and the lips," added Alnajjar.
As we look ahead at an influx of tourists for Expo 2020, Alnajjar said, "We should be ready for the future because the methods of counterfeiting and forgery are becoming more advance and the number of foreigners are multiplying sharply."
"The UAE government has employed the most advanced machines and officers in order to prevent any foreigner with a wrong intention from entering the country. We have a great reputation of being a very safe country. So if you get caught you will get a proper punishment," added Alnajjar.
Number of forged documents detected by GDRFA
January to December 2016
Fake passports: 657
Altered passports: 21
Fraud impersonation cases: 391
Total: 1,069
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nilanjana@khaleejtimes.com
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