New York, NY, September 16 – The manufacturing of fake credentials has been an issue for years; however, after a two-year investigation, Kessler International has determined that items such as passports, driver’s licenses and police badges are more attainable than ever. These items are manufactured and sold by counterfeiting operations around the globe, and with the constant expansion of the Internet, new generations of cyber criminals are thriving on the online sales of forged identification.

While the technology used to create a legitimate passport might seem foolproof, criminals find ways to mimic the same formatting techniques and technology. Kessler found that all security features such as special paper, watermarks, security threads, intaglio printing, microprinting, fluorescent dyes, color-changing ink, and document numbers that were laser perforated were used by the counterfeiters. Travel stamps were also available to give the passport a used look. Kessler has found that a fake passport can cost anywhere between a few hundred to thousands of dollars based upon the country of issue, and any requested Visas cost extra. Through its investigation, Kessler has found that a fake passport from Australia costs about $800, while a fake passport from Germany costs over $6,000, and all of them are readily available on the Internet.

“This upswing of falsified passports could potentially allow individuals unauthorized travel, completely bypassing their legal capacity to do so,” said Kessler International Vice President Susan Peterson. “Many of these counterfeiting operations seek underground Internet servers, and employ software that blocks IP addresses, locations and identities. This makes it more difficult for law enforcement to detect and shut down these counterfeiting mills.”   source