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Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process

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 Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process

Contents

3 Preface

4 Executive summary

6 Chapter 1: The global boom in migration

Why people want to move
The debate intensifies
Migration: not always a good thing?

11 Chapter 2: The scale and implications of

document fraud
The spread of fake academic documents
Points-based immigration systems
National security implications
A scam for all seasons
Links to organised crime

17 Chapter 3: Verifying the facts

An increasing workload
Deepening immigration screening
Databases and background checks
Endorsing degrees in China

22 Conclusions

© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 1

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Document fraud in the immigration process

© 2007 Economist Intelligence Unit. All rights

reserved. All information in this report is verified
to the best of the author’s and the publisher’s
ability. However, the Economist Intelligence Unit
does not accept responsibility for any loss arising
from reliance on it.
Neither this publication nor any part of it may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by an means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
Economist Intelligence Unit.

2 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007

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Document fraud in the immigration process

Preface

Paper chase: Document fraud in the immigration

process is an Economist Intelligence Unit briefing
paper, sponsored by IntegraScreen. The Economist
Intelligence Unit's editorial team conducted all
research and interviews and wrote the report. The
opinions expressed herein do not necessarily
reflect the views of the sponsor. The report was
written by Bina Jang and Graham Richardson. The
editors were David Line and Claire Beatty. The
cover image was designed by Steven Carroll. Our
thanks are due to all interviewees for their time
and insights.

September 2007

© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 3

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Document fraud in the immigration process
Executive summary
The steadily increasing propensity of people to
migrate from one part of the world to another is
seen as a necessary and desirable trend. At the
same time, however, it is a thorny and emotive
problem. The developed world is set to witness an
influx of over 100m people between 2005 and
2050. Ageing populations and skills shortages
create a demand for workers that the developing
world can supply. But it is not just people from
developing countries who are migrating; global
mobility is a trend seen in all countries and at all
skill levels. The challenge of smoothing
immigration procedures for qualified migrants
while keeping the doors closed to less desirable
entrants means many governments have been
forced to put immigration and border protection at
the top of their agendas.
To cope with these pressures, governments are
bolstering their immigration-screening practices.
Measures include capturing biometric data,
adopting objective points-based screening systems,
extending their networks into source-country
institutions, and international border
collaboration. However, these efforts are directly
threatened by the proliferation of fraudulent
documentation. To take one example, in the fiscal
year 2005, US Customs and Border Protection
apprehended 84,000 individuals entering the US
with fraudulent documentation. Despite the scale of
the problem, there are no standardised
international procedures for document verification.
Paper chase: Document fraud in the immigration
process examines the rising trend of global
migration, the extent of the challenge posed by
fake documentation in policing this migration,
and the merits of establishing international
procedures for controlling migration and verifying
documents. The report was researched and written
4 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007
by the Economist Intelligence Unit and was
sponsored by IntegraScreen. The key findings
include:
• Labour mobility is a global and increasingly
widespread trend. The volume of
international migration is likely to remain high
over the next few decades. People will
continue to want to move for several reasons-
including wage gaps and the desire to re-unite
with family already abroad. But the issue is
politically sensitive, and the debate over the
pros and cons of immigration in host countries
is likely to intensify.
• Governments see the economic benefit of
allowing inwards migration. Skilled labour is
becoming increasingly mobile, and with skills
shortages and slow population growth in the
developed world, governments recognise the
importance of allowing free flows of labour.
Although incentives to let in migrants from the
developing world are therefore rising, there is
little international consensus on how
migration should be managed.
• The demand for fake documents is growing.
The need for particular skills is prompting
governments to implement more “objective”
systems to grade potential immigrants. Points-
based or similar systems—whereby immigrants
are prioritised according to education and skill
levels, amongst other factors—seem likely to
become more popular. In turn, however, this
will increase the incentive to forge documents
supporting educational or skill-level claims.
The proliferation of fake academic certificates
is a particular problem.

Document fraud in the immigration process
• The risks posed by fraudulent documents are
increasingly serious. Companies may fret
about migrant employees providing bogus
references, but recent terrorist attacks have
illustrated the danger to national security
posed by the spread of fraudulent documents.
Criminals and terrorists are more likely to use
fake papers (or identities stolen in toto) in an
application for a genuine visa or passport than
to go to the trouble of forging the latter
themselves. Few immigration authorities have
standardised procedures to verify supporting
documentation.
• The forged-documents industry links directly
to people-smuggling and organised crime.
The false-document industry is not simply a
novelty-degree business. Those who produce
forged identity documentation are frequently
part of a global criminal fraternity of people
smugglers and traffickers whose victims are
some of the world's most vulnerable people.
• Border controls are strained when balancing
vigilance with volume. Increasing migrant
numbers have put a great strain on immigration
screening systems, which must cope with an
overwhelming number of applicants and variety
of documentation. The monotony of the work
Paper chase
and the absence of international systems to
screen supporting documentation mean some
applications based on fraudulent claims will slip
through the net.
• Immigration controls are being deepened.
The response of many host countries to these
challenges has been to “deepen” their systems
and to try to institute more checks in a
migrant's country of origin. But a large number
of visa applications will be based on fraudulent
documentation. Screening this is a hugely
time- and labour-intensive process, and one
that governments seem ill-equipped to handle
at the moment.
• Technology on its own cannot solve the
problem. A greater reliance on technology,
such as the use of biometric information in
passports and visas, is becoming common,
making conventional travel documents harder
to forge. But such technology can only fix a
particular identity, not prove whether the
identity itself is valid or based on fraudulent
documentation. Background checks on
supporting documents are becoming
increasingly important, although there are
currently few global mechanisms for
performing such checks.
© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 5
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Document fraud in the immigration process

Chapter 1: The global boom in migration

Migration numbers will continue to increase—as a necessary, and desirable, part of globalisation. But
screening qualified migrants, particularly ensuring that immigrant workers have the skills they claim, will
remain difficult. Public debate on immigration is already leading to a desire for more highly targeted
controls—but there is a lack of any consensus on how to proceed.

I
nternational migration has exploded.
Globalisation, growing trade integration and
better transportation have facilitated the
movement of people across the world in
recent decades, and large flows of people are likely
to continue. The UN’s World Population Prospects:
The 2006 Revision reports that the net number of
migrants to developed countries is set to grow by
up to 103m between 2005 and 2050, or by 2.2m
people annually, rising to 2.3m a year after 2010.
Most of these migrants will be coming from Asia—
over 1m a year, with rather smaller numbers from
Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. The
big draw—as ever—is North America, which will
take over 1.3m new migrants a year. But nearly 1m
will go to Europe each year too, according to the
UN.
Current data from the OECD also suggest
acceleration in immigration in recent years.
According to International Migration Outlook
(2006 edition)2, the UK saw its inflow of migrants
climb from 228,000 in 1995 to 379,300 in 2000
and then to 494,100 in 2004. North America
recorded an inflow of almost 1.07m permanent
settlers in 2000, growing to 1.18m in 2004. In
addition, 1.25m temporary migrants entered the
US in 2000, and their numbers increased to a little
below 1.3m in 2004. As the OECD data make clear,

Migration flows
('000 people, annual averages)
1980-1
1990 1990-2
2000 2000-2
2010 2010-2
2020 2020-2
2030 2030-2
2040 2040-2
2050
More developed regions 1,530 2,493 2,902 2,268 2,269 2,272 2,272
Less developed regions -1,530 -2,493 -2,902 -2,268 -2,269 -2,272 -2,272
Least developed countries -788 -37 -29 -277 -373 -375 -375
Other less developed countries -742 -2,456 -2,873 -1,991 -1,896 -1,897 -1,897
Africa -267 -310 -416 -377 -395 -393 -393
Asia -451 -1,340 -1,311 -1,210 -1,221 -1,222 -1,222
Europe 441 1,051 1,271 799 805 808 808
Latin America and the Caribbean -781 -775 -1,108 -616 -590 -595 -595
Northern America 972 1,277 1,453 1,305 1,300 1,300 1,300
Oceania 86 96 111 99 101 102 102
Source: UN, World Population Prospects: the 2006 revision.1

1 World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
Secretariat (2007). Available at http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/wpp2006.htm
2 Available at http://www.oecd.org/document/2/0,3343,en_2825_494553_38060354_1_1_1_1,00.html

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Population inflows for selected OECD countries ('000 people)

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Inflow data based on population registers:
Germany 648.8 685.3 658.3 601.8 602.2
Japan 345.8 351.2 343.8 373.9 372.0
Netherlands 91.4 94.5 86.6 73.6 65.1
Spain 330.9 394.0 443.1 429.5 645.8
Inflow data based on residence permits or on other sources:
Australia
Permanent inflows 114.6 138.3 119.8 130.2 150.7
Temporary inflows 224.0 245.1 340.2 244.7 261.6
Canada
Permanent inflows 227.3 250.5 229.1 221.4 235.8
Temporary inflows 262.9 283.7 263.5 244.7 245.7
France 93.0 107.6 124.8 135.1 140.1
Italy 271.5 232.8 388.1 Unavail 319.3
South Korea 185.4 172.5 170.9 178.3 188.8
Turkey 168.1 161.2 157.6 152.2 155.5
UK 379.3 373.3 418.2 406.8 494.1
US
Permanent inflows 849.8 1,064.3 1,063.7 705.8 946.1
Temporary inflows 1,249.4 1,375.1 1,282.6 1,233.4 1,299.3
EU + Norway and Switzerland (as of 2004, 2,232.3 2,471.5 2,694.1 2,478.9 2,814.5
excluding Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Malta and Slovenia)
North America (permanent) 1,077.2 1,314.8 1,292.8 927.2 1,182.0
Source: OECD, International Migration Outlook, 2006 edition

this is not an issue that just affects the affluent
countries of North America and Western Europe. Of
the other OECD members, South Korea took close
to 190,000 migrants in 2004 and Turkey over
155,000.
The OECD is careful to point out that methods
for collecting immigration data vary, as do the
categories of individual that they cover (for
instance, they may or may not include asylum
seekers). But, even so, it is interesting to note the
extremely large discrepancy between UN and OECD
data regarding past immigration into EU
countries. The implication is that this is not just a
problem of data consistency—but that nobody
really knows what is going on.
Why people want to move
There are other reasons to believe that the UN’s
forecast of 2.3m migrants a year until 2050 may be
erring on the low side. In fact, annual global
migration exceeded this level in the 1990s, and is
likely to do so again in the first decade of this
millennium. The reasons behind this growth are
not hard to identify. The World Bank identifies

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Document fraud in the immigration process
three push-pull factors:
• the wage gap between developing and
developed nations;
• existing migrant populations in developed
nations pushing to re-unite with family and
friends (the UN estimates that, in 2005, 3% of
the global population was foreign born,
compared to 2.2% in 1980);3
• ageing populations and slowing growth of
indigenous workforces in developed countries.
But this is not just poor labourers in search of a
crust. “What is clear is that people are moving
across the globe at all skill levels—there is mobility
not just of people of lower skill levels but also of
the highly skilled and the highly educated,” says
Deborah Meyers, a senior policy analyst at the
Migration Policy Institute, a US-based think-tank.
And host countries may increasingly want migrant
workers—if their skills match the country’s needs.
Securing the Border, a March 2007 strategy
paper from the UK Home Office,4 acknowledges
that the country’s economy continues to benefit
from globalisation, and that “continued growth
has come from international trade and
investment, and from the ability of British
business to fill gaps in the labour market that
cannot be filled from our own workforce.
Engineers, teachers and other experts from abroad
fill these gaps, making important contributions to
the UK through tax and revenue, as well as
developing our links with foreign countries.”
International students not only bring revenue
in terms of tuition fees, but also in terms of
spending on goods and services. Similar benefits
accrue to the US, which is the world’s premier
destination for international students. For its part,
3 Trends in Global Migrant Stock: The 2005 Revision, Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
Secretariat (2007). Available at http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/migration/UN_Migrant_Stock_Documentation_2005.pdf
4 Securing the Border, United Kingdom Home Office (March 2007). Available at
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/ourplans/securingtheukborder
5 OECD, Migration Outlook Edition 2006, op cit.
8 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007
Canada has over the past decade welcomed
educated migrants with flexible skills, and as a
result has seen its stock of foreign-born residents
climb from 4.8m, or 16.6% of the total population
in 1995, to 5.7m or 18.0% of the total in 2004.5
The debate intensifies
Immigration is already subject to many controls
across the world. Such controls seem more likely
to be extended than reduced in coming years.
There are a variety of reasons for this, both social
and economic. There seems to be a growing belief
in the populations of many countries that they are
“full up” and unable to accommodate further large
numbers of migrants; domestic political pressures
to put the brakes on immigration are therefore
increasing. At the same time, there is a more
reasoned debate going on about the overall
benefits and risks of immigration. Is the arrival of
large numbers of migrant workers simply
displacing existing populations? Or is the flow of
skilled labour from the developing to developed
world irreversibly damaging the former’s
prospects?
There are many unanswered but important
questions, and some developed countries find it
difficult to discuss them, let alone answer them.
The issue is so highly political that it has often
been kept off the agenda for public policy debate.
Few would disagree with Deborah Meyers’ view
that this “is a phenomenon that is beyond the
control of any single government. It is a
phenomenon that needs to be managed.” But
getting a multilateral accord on migration flows
looks difficult—movement of people, unlike trade
in goods and services, is something that remains

Document fraud in the immigration process
largely unregulated.
The current legal framework is feeble. Existing
international law provides a basic, but imperfect,
structure for immigration controls. Whilst states
have the broad authority to regulate the flow of
nationals across their borders, this authority is
limited by the rights given to individuals by
international law. There are international
conventions regarding the status of refugees,
migrant worker rights and people trafficking,
amongst others. But some of these conventions
have been ratified by only a few states. (Only 27
states have signed up to the migrant workers’
Migration: not always a good thing?
Most developed-country leaders acknowledge that
migration is inevitable—indeed vital—to keep their
economies humming. Tony Blair, then prime
minister of the UK, in a foreword to a February
2005 five-year strategy paper entitled Controlling
our borders: Making migration work for Britain7
noted: “Managed migration is not just good for this
country. It is essential for our continued
prosperity.”
According to Mr Blair, visitors from outside the
EU spent over £6bn (US$12bn) annually in the UK,
and those from within the EU billions more;
overseas students spent a further £2.7bn on goods
and services and £2.3bn on tuition fees. He added
that the country’s vital public services depended
upon skilled staff from overseas: foreign-born
nurses and doctors for the expanding National
Health Service, for example, or the expertise of IT
and finance professionals from India, the US and
the EU to maintain London as one of the world’s
foremost financial centres.
6 Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions for Action, Global Commission on International Migration (2005). Available at
http://www.gcim.org/attachements/gcim-complete-report-2005.pdf
7 United Kingdom Home Office (2007), Controlling our borders: Making migration work for Britain. http://www.archive2.official-
documents.co.uk/document/cm64/6472/6472.pdf
8 Migration Research Unit, University College London (2007). http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/mru/publications.htm
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convention, for example, and none of these are
major destination countries for migrants.) The
weak institutional and legal framework means that
any shift to a more rigorous multilateral regime
will be difficult.
As importantly, different countries have wildly
different needs and problems in immigration
control. This is a problem—and an opportunity—
that countries are going to have to manage on
their own. Host countries have responded to the
current inconsistencies with different regimes. As
the UN’s Global Commission on International
Migration (GCIM)6 pointed out, in Asia many
But the effects of immigration are more
complex than a politician can easily admit. Studies
by academics such as Professor John Salt, of the
Migration Research Unit at University College
London, point out that mass immigration implies
profound changes to the social infrastructure of a
country—for example, to the skills levels of the
existing population, to the demand for housing in
cities and so on.8 The conclusions of such studies
can be unwelcome—particularly if they imply that
immigration reduces incentives for the indigenous
population to obtain certain skills, or if it is
depressing local wages.
Such issues cannot be overlooked, particularly
if they are connected to wider anti-globalisation
protests. The perception that immigration serves to
widen social inequalities (through reducing the
cost of services for the rich, whilst driving down
wages for manual labour) is likely to be particularly
persistent.
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Document fraud in the immigration process
migrants move on the basis of temporary labour
contracts, whilst in parts of the Americas and
Africa, migration is largely irregular. Traditional
destination countries such as New Zealand,
Australia, Canada and the US continue to accept
migrants for permanent settlement and
citizenship, adds the report, while nations in the
Middle East tend to permit migrants within their
borders only for fixed periods.
But none of these regimes are perfect, and
immigrants remain desperate to get in. This has
the unfortunate effect of encouraging a resort to
criminality. The UK Home Office estimates that up
10 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007
to three-quarters of illegal entry to the UK—such
as human trafficking and people smuggling—is
facilitated by organised crime (see Chapter 2). But
it also recognises another growing headache.
“False documents submitted in support of
applications are a huge problem when
determining if someone should come to the UK; in
some countries fraudulent documents are
endemic,” the Home Office's strategy paper notes.
Anecdotal evidence from the visa offices of other
attractive destination-countries such as the US
and Australia seems to support the opinion of the
UK authorities.
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Document fraud in the immigration process

Chapter 2: The scale and implications of

document fraud
As host countries tighten up immigration requirements and introduce more objective systems for vetting
immigrants, there will be a greater emphasis on documentation to prove workers’ skills and status. One
side-effect of this is a greater demand for fake documents from those without the necessary skills or
connections to gain entrance to the destination country of their choice. The scale of the problem is
potentially overwhelming for immigration authorities, yet given the implications for national security (and
the links to organised crime) governments cannot afford to get it wrong.

I
mmigration is politically sensitive, and as
human mobility has increased, so too has
the complexity of the legal and
administrative processes by which it is
monitored and controlled. In recent years, the link
between migration and security has become an
issue of even greater concern—particularly with
the perceived greater risk of terrorism. Yet the
public and the state’s growing fearfulness of
international migration has made the corporate
sector restive. Humans, skilled and unskilled, are
not being allowed to move as freely across most
borders as are services, capital and information.
For many businesses, the inability to recruit at
home the best skilled or unskilled workers
threatens their competitive edge, and they may
decide to relocate operations to countries that
provide easier access to the required skills. Others
may remain at home, but turn a blind eye to the
authenticity or thoroughness of the
documentation that permits their workers to enter
their countries. Some may not even realise that
their workers’ papers are not in order.
Closer matching of immigrants’ skills with the
needs of the host economy should help maximise
the economic benefits of labour migration, and
many countries have decided to adopt increasingly
selective immigration controls as a result.
Restricted inflows may also help reduce the
political backlash against immigration, if lower-
skilled migrants are kept out (although this may
backfire). Targeted, perhaps points-based
schemes such as that long used in Australia also
appear to offer some relief to immigration
agencies, if they allow current subjective schemes
for issuing visas—open often to challenge, or
abuse—to be replaced by a more “objective”
approach.
But there is a problem with the objective,
possibly points-based approach. It puts a premium
on the veracity of the supporting documentation
needed for a visa—particularly those documents
relating to educational qualifications or work
history. Meanwhile, migrants moving en famille
must obtain suitable documents proving their
relationships, as entry is often restricted to a
worker’s immediate family members. And while
host countries’ systems may get better and better
at detecting false passports, checks on supporting
documents, although increasing, are still
inadequate given the increasing flow of migrants
worldwide—and the increasing dangers of getting
it wrong.
The spread of fake academic
documents
The legitimacy of employment documentation,
particularly that purporting to prove academic
qualifications, is particularly difficult to ascertain.
Counterfeit documentation can come in different

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Points-based immigration systems

Australia sponsorship require certified copies of made on such documents.
Various categories for workers, students birth certificates or family registers, other
and other migrants, each with different criteria require “documentary evidence” UK
requirements. For general skilled labour and are subject to unspecified background Points-based Highly Skilled Migrant Pro-
visas, applicants must be under 45 years checks. gramme (HSMP) in place since 2002.
old, have suitable English ability and post- Beginning 2008, new comprehensive
Canada points-based system to be introduced,
secondary education (in most cases).
Various categories for workers, students replacing more than 80 types of entry con-
Skills must fit those on lists of certain
and other migrants, each with different dition with five tiers: “highly skilled”,
occupations.
requirements. Points-based system for “skilled”, “low-skilled”, students, and
Points are scored against following
skilled workers (in occupations as defined temporary (or non-economic) migrants.
criteria: skill, age, English ability, work
on the Canadian National Occupational Points are scored against following
experience and qualifications in Australian
Classification list), based on six selection criteria: qualifications, previous earnings,
institutions. Other factors, such as having
criteria: education, ability in English or prior experience as a student or employee,
an occupation in demand or making capital
French, experience, age, sponsorship by age and participation in an MBA scheme.
investments in Australia (buying
employer in Canada and “adaptability” For example, for the new HSMP
government bonds, for example) earn
(that is, whether applicant has relatives in requirements, applicants must score 75
bonus points. (Certain “skill-matching”
Canada or previous work or study experi- points (plus have suitable English
visas, for applications in certain
ence there). Migrants must also have suffi- language skills) for acceptance, where a
occupations nominated by a state or
cient funds to maintain themselves and PhD scores 50 points, a Masters degree 35
territory government or employer, are not
their families. and a Bachelor’s degree 30.
points-tested.) Pass marks for points-
The pass mark for skilled workers and The guidance states: “Points will only
based applications vary but are around 120
professionals is 67 points; of which be awarded where specified evidence is
points for independent (non-sponsored)
education provides up to 25, language provided to show that you have been
visas. Point scores of between 40 and 60
ability up to 24, experience up to 21 and awarded the relevant academic or
are awarded for different occupations, with
other criteria up to 10 each. professional qualification from an
20 points available for English fluency and
Valid supporting documentation for accredited institution.” Such qualifications
10-15 for having completed a
applications includes “education need approval from relevant UK bodies to
postgraduate course at an Australian
documents or other certificates attesting qualify as evidence. With regard to the age
institution. Sponsorship by a relative who
to the educational level, employment requirement, points are granted only to
is already an Australian permanent
letters confirming work experience, those under 32; an original birth
resident or citizen earns 15 points.
language test results, police certificates, certificate or driving licence is required as
(Various revisions were introduced on
birth and marriage certificates, and bank evidence. For the MBA provision, points
September 1st 2007.)
statements confirming the applicant’s are only awarded to graduates from a list
Age requirement and relative
funds”. No description is given of checks of recognised institutions.

Sources: Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship website, www.immi.gov.au; General Skilled Migration guidance booklet, available at
http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/1119.pdf; Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, http://www.cic.gc.ca; Regulatory Impact Assessment—A Points-Based System: Making Migration Work
for Britain, available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/ria-making-migration-work-070306?view=Binary;UK Border & Immigration Agency, Highly Skilled Migrant Programme Guidance for
Applicants, available at http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/11406/49552/hsmp1guidance

12 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007


Document fraud in the immigration process
forms: fake examination results, a degree from a
fake school, or even a fake degree from a real
school (see box, below).
John Bear, a US-based expert on “diploma
mills”, recounts buying a medical degree from
Harvard University for US$50 from a counterfeit-
degree seller. “There are a great many of these.
Just type ‘counterfeit diploma’ into a Google
search box,” he says. “This accounts for a lot of the
immigration fraud, I believe. Someone says they
have an Oxford University MBA, and shows a very
realistic-looking diploma, and people are fooled.”
So what can immigration authorities do?
Curtailing the entry of overseas students, who
often use their resident status to seek employment
once their academic career ends, is not really an
option. Foreign students are a lucrative source of
fees for universities. Jacques Hallak and Muriel
Poisson in their 2005 paper titled Academic fraud
and quality assurance: facing the challenge of
internationalisation of higher education9, written
for UNESCO’s International Institute for
Educational Planning, note that foreign
undergraduates constitute less than 10% of the
total student population in UK universities, but
contribute more to their financing than do British
and EU students combined. In Australia, 100,000
overseas students are estimated to contribute
A$2.5bn (US$2bn) annually, or up to two-fifths of
the budgets of some universities.
Immigration authorities do not have many
options, as the current situation stands. “Because
of the existence of hundreds of fake schools, plus
all the counterfeiters, it is a very difficult and time-
consuming process for immigration authorities to
check up on people, so I think many of them don’t
do it,” notes Mr Bear. It doesn't help that the
counterfeit schools sometimes use names the same
9 Available at http://www.unesco.org/iiep/eng/research/highered/polforum/Papers/Day2/HallakPoisson.pdf
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as, or similar to, real schools, he adds. For
example, LaSalle University run out of Louisiana is
fake (the real LaSalle University is in
Pennsylvania), and Stamford University is fake
(but Stanford University isn’t).
National security implications
The potential dangers of accepting fake
documents as valid go beyond employing
unqualified staff (although in the medical
profession this itself can be life-threatening) or
denying job opportunities to local-born workers.
With the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001
in New York and Washington, March 11th 2004 in
Madrid, July 7th 2005 in London, and June 30th
2007 at Glasgow airport, securing borders against
the ingress of potential terrorists has become the
highest priority of the most popular migrant-
destination countries. Notwithstanding the fact
that in at least one of these instances (London)
the bombers in question were local-born, the need
to track the movement of suspected terrorists
across borders and to pinpoint their identities has
become pressing.
Faking complicated identity documents such as
passports and ID cards has always been a costly
operation; consequently experts consider it
unlikely that this kind of fake documentation will
spread rapidly. There is a greater danger that
would-be terrorists will use fradulent documents
in order to obtain a passport, entry visa or other
form of identification. The growing problem of
“identity theft” means that supporting documents
may in fact refer to a real person—just not the one
using them. Currently, few government
immigration services have standardised
procedures in place to check supporting
documentation. Even if the risk of fake visas or ID
© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 13
 Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process

A scam for all seasons

Are the people who “subscribe” to fake
degree/diploma mills themselves victims
of an academic abuse, or are they know-
ingly warping academic rules? “This is a
very important question, and no one
knows,” says John Bear, a US-based
expert on diploma mills. “When people are
caught, they always say that they were
fooled…but my belief is that most people
know what they are doing, and hope to
fool others.”
However, Mr Bear adds that some very
clever diploma mills also have fake
accreditation (there are over 200 fake
accrediting agencies), and that reassures
people who have read that they should be
careful and only deal with accredited
schools. They don’t know that there are
also fake accreditors.
Mr Bear, who has written several books
on distance learning as well as one titled
Degree mills: the billion-dollar industry that
has sold more than a million fake degrees10,
believes that the incidence of
degree/diploma mills is likely to keep
growing. Not too long ago, the three
biggest problems of a diploma mill were
the cost of advertising, the cost of
postage, and the need for anonymity or a
low profile. Enter the Internet. “[It] is
their fondest dream come true,” notes Mr
Bear. “It easily solves all three problems
for them. And as long as people want their
product, they will grow and thrive.”
His opinion is echoed by Jacques Hallak
and Muriel Poisson in their 2005 paper
titled Academic fraud and quality
assurance: facing the challenge of
internationalisation of higher education,11
written for UNESCO’s International
Institute for Educational Planning.
Extensive developments in information-
communication technology in recent
years, they argue, have immensely
widened the scope for fraud in academia,
at the same introducing innovative
methods of malpractice.
“The Internet is now arguably the
leading vehicle for fraudulent [academic]
practices”, they write, and among other
things has facilitated the practice of
selling fake degrees “sometimes even from
reputable colleges and institutions such as
Harvard and Yale”. There are numerous
websites from which to choose, some with
names that say blatantly what their
business is all about:
www.fakedegrees.com,
www.cheathouse.com,
www.diplomasforless.com, www.Degrees-
R-Us.com—the list is long.
Fake-degree mills are prolific because
they make money, and lots of it, for the
people who operate them. The one-man-
operation of yesteryear has
metamorphosed into a multimillion-dollar
global business in fake degrees. According
to Mr Bear, when Columbia State
University was investigated in the 1990s,
evidence of US$72m in sales was found; in
the case of LaSalle University in Louisiana,
there was evidence of making US$35m in
four years; and in the case of the University
Degree Program, run out of Romania and
Israel, the FBI estimated that more than
US$500m had been raked in from selling
500,000 degrees worldwide.

documents is relatively low, there are risks if
documents used to obtain these are themselves of
dubious provenance.
To take one example, a CNN report on diploma
mills and terrorism that aired on December 15th
2005 showed how a fake advanced degree could
help to get a coveted H-1B visa to work in the US,
which terrorists could use to their advantage. The
report cited a US Secret Service operation in which
an agent calling himself Mohammed Syed-and
claiming to be a Syrian army expert-was notified
by “James Monroe University”, a degree mill, that
it would award him three bogus degrees in
advanced engineering and chemistry for a little
over US$1,000.
Recognising the severity of the situation, in
April 2006 the US Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) established special task forces to
target fraud involving the manufacturing, sale and
use of counterfeit identity documents in 10 of

10 with Allen Ezell; Prometheus Books, 2005, ISBN: 1-59102-238-X

11 Op cit

14 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007


Document fraud in the immigration process
America’s largest cities, to complement the efforts
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
officers. (ICE was established in March 2003 as the
largest investigative arm of the DHS.) The scheme
was expanded to 17 cities in April 2007. ICE also
has a forensic document laboratory which provides
training and technical assistance to law-
enforcement bodies in the detection of fraudulent
documents. But such efforts, considering the
international scope and sheer volume of
immigration documents that require screening,
can only act as a palliative rather than a cure.
Links to organised crime
Aside from the national-security implications,
document forgery is also a form of organised crime
frequently associated with the illegal trade of
smuggling and trafficking human beings. Amnesty
International estimates that 4m people are
smuggled or trafficked across international
borders each year.12 Forged documents often play
a role in one stage of the process.
The distinction between smuggling and
trafficking is whether or not the individual has
chosen to embark on the journey. Tragically, this
distinction is often immaterial; regardless of how
the journey starts, it often ends in exploitation
and suffering for the victims. Crime rings trap their
charges with insurmountable debts, violence and
intimidation to force them into working in
dangerous, unregulated conditions or within the
sex industry. One well-known horror story is the
death of 23 Chinese cockle-pickers who drowned in
February 2004 after being abandoned by their
gang-masters on UK mudflats as the tide rushed in
around them. They were being paid just US$2 for
nine hours’ hard labour.
Amnesty International estimates that people-
12 Available at http://www.amnesty.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/77198/People_smuggling.pdf
13 Data available at http://www.fia.gov.pk/oep.htm
Paper chase
smuggling and trafficking has a commercial value
of about US$10bn per year. In pursuit of these
profits, the now sophisticated industry has seen a
growing trend towards collaboration between
organised crime syndicates. In addition, a highly
developed sub-economy of agents or facilitators
who provide legal, financial, IT and
communications expertise, corrupt access,
production facilities and forged documents has
emerged. With computers and the Internet as their
primary tools, these criminals are able to provide
smugglers with state-of-the-art forgeries.
In the US, the Castorena Family Organisation
(CFO) is a large-scale crime syndicate that
operates from Mexico with local hubs in ten US
cities. It specialises in forged documents such as
passports, birth certificates, work permits,
marriage certificates and driving licenses. When
US authorities raided CFO facilities in Los Angeles
in the late 1990s, they seized documents with a
street value of US$20m.
The Global Commission on International
Migration (GCIM) advocates that source-countries
take stronger action in prosecuting those who
recruit or harbour illegal migrants as well as
confiscating their assets. It also calls for
governments to take action against the
questionable recruitment agencies with shady
dealings in forged visas. There have been some
positive steps and, more generally, the developing
world is waking up to its human-rights
responsibilities. For example, Pakistan’s Federal
Investigation Agency has launched a major
country-wide offensive against people-smuggling
rings and took action against 115 illegal overseas-
employment bureaus between 2003 and 2005.13
The European Commission is establishing a
European image-archiving system for false and
© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 15
 Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process

authentic documents (FADO) to combat illegal
immigration and organised crime. FADO aims to
facilitate the fast and simple exchange between
member states of information concerning genuine
and false documents. The FADO database will
contain images of false and forged documents,
genuine documents, and information on forgery
and security techniques.14 While this will help in
determining fraudulent documentation, it will not
identify or enable the sharing of information
about specific individuals.

14 http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/freetravel/documents/wai/fsj_freetravel_documents_en.htm

16 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007

 Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process

Chapter 3: Verifying the facts

Host countries are developing immigration screening programmes, as increasing migrant numbers threaten
to overwhelm traditional monitoring systems. Their response has been twofold: to try to “deepen” the
screening process so that it starts in the migrant’s home country, and to introduce more objective systems
for immigration control. Both types of evaluation require massive investments in labour and technology
(eg, biometric passports) and cannot provide an easy solution. Deeper immigration screening may also
require increased co-operation between the host government’s own systems and outside agencies.

T
he task faced by immigration authorities in
screening potential immigrants is vast.
Developed countries’ consulates in popular
migrant source towns may process
thousands of visa applications a week-of which a
substantial number will be rejected. The UK alone
received almost 2.75m visa applications in
2006/07, of which 81% were accepted.15
As well as issuing visas, receiving countries for
migrants have to check that their passports and
supporting documentation are correct at the point
of entry-no mean feat, if one considers the number
of people coming through airports and ports. The
UK Home Office notes that in 2006 more than
4,000 forged or counterfeit documents were
detected at UK ports; many more presumably
slipped through the net.16
An increasing workload
The situation is similarly stressful for US
immigration officials and is highlighted in an
article published by the Center for Immigration
Studies (CIS) in the US.17 The CIS reports that the
US Consulate in Mexico City conducts an
unrealistically high number of daily interviews of
visa applicants, with each US consular officer
handling 150-200 applicants in a span of five to
seven hours. This means an average of about two
minutes per application, during which the
consular officer has to review documents, ask
questions in Spanish, determine whether the
applicant qualifies for a non-immigrant visa, and
fill out the requisite paperwork.
The high volume of interviews means that a
consular officer hears the same stories repeated
frequently, and the “desensitising monotony” of
this endless flood of applications is not conducive
to quality screening, says the CIS. It adds that for
the applicant using fraudulent documentation to
enter a country, it is easier to mislead a tired
consular officer than to take the hazardous—and
decidedly more expensive—alternative of an
illegal border-crossing facilitated by people
smugglers. This story should perhaps be taken
with a grain of salt since the CIS has a conservative
anti-immigration agenda, but the pressure on
consular officials is confirmed by anecdotal
evidence and interviews conducted for this paper.
Moreover, the US Department of Homeland
Security admits that on arrival to the US, travellers
present over 8,000 different types of
documentation and that this number must be
limited in order to help officers zero in on the
forgeries.

15 United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UKvisas Annual Report 2006/07. Available at
http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/UKvisasAnnualReport07.pdf
16 Securing the Border, op cit
17 Nickolai Wenzel, Centre for Immigration Studies, "America's Other Border Control" (August 2000)
http://www.cis.org/articles/2000/back800.html

© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 17

 Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process
Other countries are also coming closer to
admitting that major changes are needed. The
Australian immigration department’s review of its
information-technology (IT) systems in 2006
recommended a radical multimillion-dollar
overhaul of its hardware and software
infrastructure, as well as its project-management
capability, record-keeping and record-
management. The review was in part prompted by
two very public embarrassments for the Australian
immigration authorities—the unlawful deportation
of Vivien Alvarez to the Philippines in July 2001,
despite her being an Australian citizen, and the
illegal detention in 2004 of Australian resident
Cornelia Rau, falsely thought to be a German over-
stayer.
As mentioned, countries seem likely to move
increasingly to a points-based system for
prioritising immigrants. This already exists in
Australia; applicants are given points for
educational and skill levels, amongst other things.
The UK is phasing in a similar system. But such
schemes will provide an even greater incentive to
potential immigrants to forge documents claiming
high educational status or specific skills—making
the document-verification process yet more
crucial. The consensus is that this process must
begin at migrant's countries of origin if it is to be
effective.
Deepening immigration screening
Countries increasingly believe that they cannot
identify all potential undesirable immigrants at
the point of entry; they seek therefore to “deepen”
the process by carrying out more checks within the
immigrant’s own country. This can be done at
different levels, but each adds an additional layer
of complexity to the immigration process.
18 UKvisas Annual Review 2006/07, op cit
18 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007
First, some form of risk-related assessment still
needs to be done within the immigrant’s own
country—both of the applicant’s suitability for a
visa, and of the supporting documentation. This is
no easy task in many countries, as one US consular
official based in southern China reports. Although
fake passports are a rarity, efforts to screen other
documents in China are hampered by widespread
fraud.
“You can’t trust any [personal] documents in
China”, the official says, explaining that the
market for supplying fraudulent papers in support
of visa applications is vast and growing quickly. On
one occasion, the official recalls, a visa
interviewee who had neglected to bring a birth
certificate left to “find” the document and
returned from a printing shop across the road
minutes later, new certificate in hand.
However, the fact that the authenticity of
documents is widely questioned means there is at
least a level playing field, the official claims. The
assumption is made that the document in question
is fraudulent unless it is proved to be genuine. But
finding the proof is a labour-intensive and time-
consuming process. In India alone, the UK visas
authority identified 140 companies set up to
provide bogus employment references for visa
applicants. It also notes that in 2006/07 UK
officials detected over 12,600 fraudulent
documents used to support applications in Lagos
alone.18
For those individuals who are not required to
obtain a visa before entry, one solution is for a
secondary electronic-checking system to send
passenger lists to the host country before the
immigrant gets on the plane—meaning boarding
can be stopped if some anomaly is picked up. Even
when an immigrant is on the plane to the host

Document fraud in the immigration process
country, their details can be further checked-so
that they can be turned back on arrival.
The technology to do this already exists. For 16
weeks until February 2007 London’s Heathrow
Airport ran a test of a system that uses biometrics
for identification, known as miSense, in
conjunction with the UK immigration authorities,
Cathay Pacific Airways and Emirates. The trial was
by most accounts a success. Biometric systems
have already been tried out at many other airports
by immigration control authorities. In some cases,
biometric systems have been implemented in one
form or the other to verify passenger identity—for
example, in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Dubai and Australia.
Another initiative is SPEED, which is available
to Hong Kong permanent identity-card holders
flying frequently between Hong Kong and London.
SPEED was jointly conducted by the Hong Kong
International Airport, Hong Kong’s Immigration
Department and Cathay Pacific Airways from
January to June 2007. Like miSense, SPEED was
run to test the principles of the Simplifying
Passenger Travel (SPT) programme, initiated by
the International Air Transport Association.
As its name suggests, the SPEED model aims to
integrate airport, immigration and airline
processes in real time. Passengers who enrol in
SPEED have superior online check-in and baggage
handling facilities, immigration control, security
clearance and aircraft boarding. In addition, they
can participate in IRIS, or the Iris Recognition
Immigration System, developed by the UK
government and Sagem, which permits automated
entry clearance.
It is expected that the use of biometrics will
greatly assist automated verification. Such
systems essentially use pattern recognition to
identify users by authenticating their unique
physiological or behaviourial traits. Increasingly
these systems are being introduced to
Paper chase
authenticate immigration applicants’ identity, as
well as to screen travellers. The UK, for example, is
rolling out a system to include biometric data in
each visa granted. But there are snags in relying
on technology of this nature.
For a start, “These systems are not yet
compatible and interoperable worldwide,” notes
Thomas Romig, airport manager for information
technology (IT) with the Airports Council
International, a Geneva-based association of
airports. One of the SPT’s tasks is to facilitate this
“harmonisation” so that such systems are rolled
out on a long-term basis to allow a passenger
travelling between different locations to be
verified at all ports of entry and exit.
Can biometrics be deployed in isolation of other
verification procedures? “No system is foolproof,”
says Mr Romig. “However, some are better than
others and it can be said that biometrics, although
not foolproof, is very robust…The technology
used has been developed to minimise the
possibility of spoofing or fooling the system. It is
very hard to use another person’s biometric as it
would mean that the biometric would have to be
presented to the control point; unless the
person—or their biometric—is present the
identification will not take place.” He adds that
many biometric verification systems being used
worldwide are fully automated and do not require
manual intervention except in unusual
occurrences such as false documentation.
But biometrics has prompted concerns about
privacy issues—and divergent attitudes. One side
warns that using biometrics would enable the
authorities to “police” an individual’s movements
worldwide. The other side argues that biometrics
would be just another technology that uses an
individual’s personal details to enable a modern
life, for example, using an ATM, a mobile phone,
the Internet or a machine-readable passport.
“There may be privacy issues with biometric
© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 19
 Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process
data being held in databases as this is based on
national legislation,” says Mr Romig, “but from
the greater public’s point of view, it has to be
understood that biometrics will only improve
security and, in some cases, hopefully make life
easier for people.” Indeed, individuals willing to
register their private details could even turn to
private identification services such as Edentiti,
developed by an Australia-based company of the
same name. The product offers 100 points of
identification to an individual based on their
associations with other individuals and
organisations. Both sides have to agree on the
association for it to be considered verified.
At a rather simpler level, identity verification
services provided by the private sector are
becoming more common, particularly in the US.
For example, Intelli-Check, based in New York
state, markets ID-CHECK technology, which
according to the company blurb reads, analyses
and verifies the encoded data in magnetic strips
and barcodes on government-issue IDs from about
60 jurisdictions in the US and Canada to determine
the validity of content and format. But applying
this approach to other supporting documentation
may be more difficult: very few university-degree
certificates are barcoded, for example.
Databases and background checks
Official forecasts and back-of-the-envelope
calculations both suggest that migrant numbers
are likely to remain very high for the foreseeable
future. Individual countries continue to struggle
with the implications of this volume for visa
control. Improved national systems and more co-
ordination between government agencies are
unlikely to solve matters. Although biometric
passports and data can link individuals with an
identity, they will not on their own prove that the
documentation supporting that identity is valid.
So, visas will continue to be issued based on
20 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007
fraudulent documentation.
Document verification will also remain
imperfect, with volume being the major inhibiting
factor. The substantial numbers of visas processed
for the major migrant destinations will continue to
put their systems under strain; better risk-
assessment systems will mitigate the problem, but
not solve it. Similarly, a harder-headed approach
by receiving countries (for example by refusing to
issue a visa to anyone who has been caught using
bogus documentation in the past) will not stop
those desperate for a new life. Various non-
governmental initiatives (including in the private
sector) have been launched to tackle this problem.
Organisations checking educational
qualifications seem to be the most established.
The Australian firm IDP, for example, has long
been engaged in checking the educational
qualifications and background of foreign students
applying for further courses in Australia. In the
US, the National Student Clearinghouse—a not-
for-profit organisation—has now been verifying
educational qualifications for 13 years. Another
Australian firm, VETASSESS, is the only non-
domestic organisation authorised to access
China’s database of validated educational
certificates (although this is said to cover
diplomas more effectively than degree
certificates). IntegraScreen—the sponsors of this
report—Global Screening Solutions, L-1 Identity
Solutions, Digimarc and LexisNexis are among the
private-sector firms offering document screening
and identity verification services.
Employment history checking is also being
developed, with some of these organisations
involved in on-the-ground research, maintaining
offices in source-countries such as India and China
and building up databases on individuals and
bogus companies set up for the sole purpose of
supplying fraudulent documents.
There is already collaboration between such

Document fraud in the immigration process
Endorsing degrees in China
China's authorities are worried about the threat
posed by fake degrees to the reputation of their
educational institutions. In response, they have
established the China Higher-Education Student
Information and Career Centre (CHESICC) to
endorse and verify all secondary-school and
degree certificates. It has a database that stores
the student's name, sex, date of birth,
college/university, subject studied, course level,
graduation date, ID certificate and graduation
photograph, and the serial number of the candi-
date's diploma or certificate.
firms and governments. Although pre-employment
screening has traditionally been the greatest
source of revenue for these companies, there is
evidence to suggest that contracts with
government immigration departments are a
potentially fruitful avenue of growth. Some
countries have reported success with these
initiatives: the United Arab Emirates, for example,
in September 2005 began verifying the
educational qualifications of all applicants for
managerial work permits. The UAE’s ministry of
labour reports that over 180,000 qualifications
have since been screened by a third-party verifier,
and it plans to expand the programme. But such
systems are untested on a larger scale, and
problems with sharing information between firms
are likely to impede the establishment of global
document-verification systems.
Then again, perhaps standard document
verification is not the only answer to the problem.
Kevin Cox, founder and chief technology officer of
Edentiti, a small Australian organisation that is
still trying to convince others about its approach,
says that the process of document verification is
Paper chase
The drawback is that CHESICC has only
authorised certain domestic educational bodies
and one foreign organisation, VETASSESS (an
Australian migration document-verification and
training firm), to carry out verifications. Other
governments and businesses would have to go
through Chinese universities and notaries in order
to try to check on authenticity, as its database for
degrees (if not diplomas) is widely seen to be
inadequate.
outdated. “The document that an organisation
gives you is essentially a copy of their records,”
says Mr Cox. “In a sense it’s like a letter of
introduction, the same concept. But we don’t have
to do that now we’ve got the Internet.”
Edentiti believes that the best way to solve the
problem of fraudulent documentation is for
individuals to build up their own identities—
initially getting third parties to verify the
documentation supporting their life story. So you
might take your degree certificate, get it verified
by a third party, and then post it on your own
personal webspace (or on a smart card at home).
The biometric linking the identity to the
documentation is a voice print: Edentiti rings the
individual if access to data is requested, and needs
to get an affirmative voice print to continue.
Whether such a system of verification can work
on a sufficiently large scale is open to question,
however, while the technology and the
applications remain in their infancy—and are often
unavailable to those developing-country migrants
most desperate to build new lives abroad.
© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 21
 Paper chase
Document fraud in the immigration process
Conclusions
T
here are few areas of consensus when it
comes to global migration: exactly the
scale of the issue, whether it injects fresh
talent into developed economies or
undermines local labour markets—everyone has a
strongly held opinion. On one issue there is
agreement, however: global migration requires
increased control. Countries need to be able to
determine who enters their borders to ensure
people with the desired skills or other attributes
come in, while those who are unqualified (or who
present a security threat) stay out.
So what steps can governments take, in order to
know with relative certainty to whom they are
granting or denying entry? Borders must seem
welcoming to holidaymakers, yet rigorous
processes must be in place to vet those who are
planning to stay and work. Difficulty in getting
visas, the unpredictability of entry requirements,
and unfriendly customs officers are having a
seriously damaging impact on tourism, according
to 25 US city mayors surveyed by the Travel
Business Roundtable, a US trade association for
the travel industry. This is certainly something
that governments would wish to avoid.19
In an ideal world, to ensure reliable identity
verification, source-countries would create a
single database that would track birth, education
and marriage certificates, driving licenses and
criminal records. Immigration officials from
foreign countries could, with permission from a
would-be migrant, access the information and
verify easily the identity and credentials of a given
individual. Currently, countries are a long way
from sharing this kind of information on the kind
19 More information available at http://www.tbr.org
22 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007
of scale necessary to perfect border screening.
Moreover, it would have serious implications for
civil liberties if personal information were tracked
in this way.
However, setting up organisations that can
validate an individual’s personal documentation
could be an important step. For example, the body
established in China to verify and register
educational certificates could be replicated in
other countries where fraudulent diplomas are
endemic. The next step would be to grant qualified
access to overseas immigration departments. Or
perhaps migrants would be asked to prove their
identity in their own country before applying for
foreign visas.
Destination countries such as the US and those
of the EU can build up databases of valid and false
documentation to help customs recognise
forgeries, although the effectiveness of these
databases in fraud detection still relies on
immigration officials having the time and
expertise to use them. Private-sector firms might
perform the labour-intensive and painstaking
work of combing through the background data—
but the responsibility for border protection is
unlikely ever to be outsourced, and will remain
labour intensive.
Either way, whether immigration screening is
tightened through a co-ordinated multilateral
effort or in partnership with the private sector, the
goalposts will keep shifting. The advent of the
Internet and other advances in technology will
mean that the supply and sophistication of
forgeries continues to grow, and fake documents
will remain difficult to detect.
Paper size: 210mm x 270mm

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Document fraud in the immigration
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