British passport ring smashed in Paris 25/04/2008 00:00

French police cracked an international network that printed and sold fake British passports across Europe.

25 April 2008

PARIS - French police said Thursday they have smashed an international network that printed and sold fake British passports across Europe, operating out of Paris and its suburbs.

Around 20 people, most of them from Bangladesh and Pakistan, were arrested on Tuesday including six suspected ringleaders who were taken into custody.

French border police tracked down two "manufacturing units" that were churning out high-quality fake passports, one of them based in a van that moved around the Paris region.

Investigators seized more than 100 fake British passports, as well as stamps for forging birth and tax certificates, and the orders and photographs of would-be passport buyers.

Each passport sold for between EUR 3,000 and 5,000, in Britain, France, Belgium and Germany.

[AFP / Expatica]