Passport Scam?

Question

I dont know if it's true or not but i've heard that international criminals that do people smuggling and human trafficking etc.. would buy your passport for between £10k-£20k. Now i wouldn't ever consider selling my passport at all, would any of you lot...if you really needed the money?

Answer 1

An American passport pays more than that. It is why American tourists are targeted for pickpocketing and purse snatching. The most valuable thing in the bag is not the wallet, its the passport. Carry your passport in a special carrier around your neck and under your clothes for extra protection.

Until the Biometric passport is available, US customs still relies on the passport number. If the picture is altered well enough they cannot tell the difference. They can even make a duplicate passport and the person would not be aware that his or her number was being used. So a US or British passport is not worthless as claimed by another member (probably never seen a passport let alone used one) but is highly prized.

Additional info:

Biometric Passports are not yet available, everyone check your facts. That requirement has been temporarily suspended until more infastructure can be put in place. ALSO you will not be required to replace your existing passport with a Biometric one until it expires, in the USA that is 10 years. So there will be a thriving market for passports for some time.

Answer 2

There is a thriving black market in lost/stolen/sold identity documents. Passports from different countries command vastly different sums. Such documents are either photo substituted or used by imposters.

With the advent of hi tech security solutions, it is becoming more difficult to actually cross an international border with false documents. However, they can be used once the person is in another country, and also as "feeder" documents.

As far as price, £10k-£20k is certainly not much money for a 1st World passport, though that amount could easily get you a Somali passport, for example. Then agani, a junkie would probably flog a UK passport for half that price if it meant a quick fix. Generally though, ease of use, availability and market demand set the price.

It really is not worth it to sell your documents. Ultimately, you never know what evil someone will do while posing as you. In addition, the money is not that great, and then you must go to the trouble of replacing the documents - filing a false police report that it was lost or stolen, re-filing an application, etc. In addition, there will be an official record that the documents were replaced - you can only do that once without raising suspicion about your activities

Answer 3

I've never heard of such a price for a passport belonging to someone else.

Modern passports are difficult to forge. Most black-market and forged passports use pre-biometric methods; and because their OCR data won't be on immigration computers unless they copy someone's actual data, it's becoming increasingly difficult to forge documents (passports and ID cards of European and other OECD countries). Irish and Swiss passports have replicas of the photograph drilled into the plastic data sheet as tiny holes: impossible to change. More and more, photographs are color-printed onto the data page and not stuck on with glue. Time is running out on the validity of early-model OCR-enabled passports. The new ones are often made in a limited number of factories, mailed to the owner at home and/or sent by diplomatic bag to embassies and consulates abroad.

There are still weak links, but more and more people smuggling depends on passports of countries that are easy to forge or that can be obtained by bribery, and physical smuggling, hidden in trucks and boats and hiking through no-man's-land.

The King's Cross Station area of London has long been a center of the fake passport trade, run by Albanians, Romanians and other Eastern Europeans, selling fake passports manufactured in Thailand and elsewhere.

Answer 4

Passports sell for high prices. Until recently you could apply for a passport in the name of John Smith or even someone who was dead and get one and sell it. Security has improved - but is still full of holes.

Answer 5

I was offered a £1000 for mine a few years ago.I didnt sell it.
do u know many passports go missing from the home office,they have people working right in there who take them or supposedly put them in the post but they never arrive.the whole thing stinks.
what of those gangs who are caught with 100's of blank passports,where the hell did they get them from.

Answer 6

Never,A British passport is very much sought after by many illegal immigrants to this country,including all types of criminals, if as you say £10k-£20k is the going price,they can shove it up their jacksy!!!!,my passport is worth 100 times that

Answer 7

They don't buy passports from the passport holders. They buy them from thieves or from middle men dealing in stolen passports. You'd have to be mad to sell your passport to someone who could then use it to steal your identity!

Answer 8

NEVER!!! I am a proud holder of a United States of America passport. It is priceless!

Answer 9

It's not true. A UK or USA passport is useless to them.
What they would pay the money for is for people who have not applied for a passport before -- who then would apply for one but supply different photographs i.e. of the person being smuggled.

Answer 10

Not even if I were starving.... that´s ilegal and you don´t know what they would do with your name... for me that´s the only thing I would have to protect ever...my identity!