Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 19, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free october a5 counterfeit passport War is sneaking into Manitoba some illegals merely borrow real passports to get in investigative reporter Jim Stinson is staring at a stack of forged passports perched atop his desk a frighteningly Large stack and shaking his head As head of the Manitoba ramps local immigration and passport is on the front lines of a War against sophisticated International counterfeiters who have turned the Art of passport forgery into a huge its a War the authorities abroad increasingly Here in Manitoba Are Ive seen some forged passports that actually look better than the originals because the counterfeit ers have More Money than the countries issuing Stinson said the Art of altering a name or photograph on a passport with a Sharp razor Blade and a steady hand is becoming lost As forgers get increasingly modern turn ing to More sophisticated techniques like chemicals and High tech photocopiers to churn out passports on demand at an alarming bogus documents and while phoney passports Are nothing new in major Canadian ports of entry like Toronto and Stinson says recent developments suggest the illegal Trade is now looking at Iso lated outposts like Manitoba As a place they can pass their bogus documents with relative Stinson says the stack of bogus passports on his desk seized at a rate of about six annually in recent years from people trying to sneak into Manitoba at the Airport or Border proves the but in Case anyone is still miss ing Stinson says no one needs to look any further than the Case of finder Singh Brar to understand the International counterfeit pass port Trade has come to a local Gas was busted at the Minneapolis Airport in August allegedly attempting to smuggle Daya Singh Sandhu the Leader of the Khal Stan liberation front and one of the worlds most wanted terrorists into the bust took place after a landed immigrant in shipped his Indian passport to Ottawa for processing and authorities there found it had been tampered Stinson said a closer examination turned up evidence bars passport had been taken apart and put Back even More one of the pages inside the document was Dis coloured As though someone had used a chemical to remove a pass port stamp on the Page to erase any record of a particular foreign police Are still trying to figure that one out months were not Stinson but what troubles Stinson even More than that incident or even the increasing sophistication of passport counterfeiters is the fact that Many illegals Are using borrowed passports to enter Canada and not even bothering to alter them any Stinson says family members already living in Canada Are coerced by other family Mem Bers Back Home to mail them their passports so they can use them to come Here themselves or give them to people there trying to smuggle into people get a lot of pressure from their families to do he in the Brar Stinson says the Gas Sandhu and Sadhus wife were All intending to Cross Back into Canada using pass ports Brar allegedly borrowed from friends in including one Man police believe was essentially forced to turn Over his he was a Stinson unaltered Stinson said none of those pass ports were altered and authorities believe the threesome intended to simply Cross into Manitoba by car and pass themselves off As the peo ple in the and if the pictures didst exactly Stinson said the discrepancies were nothing so Large that a pair of eyeglasses or a shaved Beard Stinson says the sheer audacity of the scam proves How Little respect the people involved in the alien smuggling Trade have for the officials Manning Canadian Border and he says we have no one to blame but the Public pressure on the Cus Toms people is pushing them to hurry people Stinson citing repeated complaints from the Public about Long lineups As the Root of the but in our hurry to get Home from weekend shopping Stinson Gas jockey indicted a1 says were endangering our own Security by pressuring customs peo ple to examine travel documents in seconds when they should be taking at least several Stinson cited one example of a Canadian Man whose fake Canad an passport was finally seized in Winnipeg recently after someone noticed the markings on the cover were a bit More Blurry than aside from that minor disc rep Stinson said the passport was virtually identical to a legitimate government issued one and Stamps inside it indicated the Man Man aged to use it to travel to Argenti India and Nepal before someone finally spotted the and that was a Canadian pass considered one of the worlds most secure passports and one which authorities Here know so Stinson said the difficulties increase considerably when Bor Der officials Are presented with phoney passports from tiny coun tries around the world most have never heard that Why it takes so Long to properly examine a pass Stinson and the stakes in not doing that examination properly Are Stinson because once some one has entered Canada the chances Are excellent there Here to live a very quiet life and because Canada has so much to theres no reason stand have Access to to to Good cheap its not like breaking where we get someone calling and complain no ones going to Call us about someone else Carol a spokesman for Canada says officers at the Border do inspect passports and other travel documents closely and recent changes increasing the personal exemption for canadians shopping abroad is allowing them More time to focus on drug and illegal alien were Well equipped to Deal with the situation there describe Mckinley Marc free press Stinson examines collection of altered or forged Sale a bran name Quality electronics new technology for 95 everything under one saves you no payments no interest Lon term free delivery income setup Advance total service policy to extra warranty charges Best Price or your Money Back Plain and retail Council of Canada Price Protection full Exchange retailer of the 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