Police in touch with Interpol

The police, through Interpol, are probing the discovery of a number of fake Maltese passports reportedly sold to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling, The Times has learnt.

The fake passports were among a large quantity seized by Thai police in Bangkok last Saturday evening. The passports were supposedly issued by a number of countries including the United States, New Zealand, France, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Malta. They were allegedly sold to a group of Thai and Burmese middlemen who then sold them to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling, the Bangkok police said.

Sources close to the government told The Times that the discovery was, of course, of concern to the authorities and, therefore, the police are looking into the matter in liaison with Interpol, the international criminal police organisation.

The sources said initial indications suggested that the passports seized in Thailand are based on an older version of the Maltese passport. However, no further precise details were available due to the ongoing investigation.

The government sources said the Maltese passports have several security parameters, with each passport having embedded security features aimed at making it difficult to counterfeit.

A number of questions sent on Wednesday morning to the police Community and Media Relations Unit remained unanswered until the time of writing.

Mohammed Karim, a 56-year-old from Bangladesh, was nabbed by the police in a Bangkok townhouse late on Saturday last week. The police said they had found a sophisticated passport-making operation and more than 1,000 finished and unfinished documents.

Police Major-General Chaktip Chaichinda had told the media the man had admitted making the fake passports, adding that his partner, a Myanmar national, escaped arrest.

Police seized two computers, a scanner, three printers and rubber stamps of several countries.

Passport fraud is a common problem in Thailand and the police seized 100 fake documents last year.