Page 81 - Veritas Vol 3, Issue 2

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4. Pseudo Documents: These documents seem authentic but do not attempt
to recreate the original.

Pseudo documents commonly take the form of:
• Fake documents issued by fake states or organisations.

• A document from a dissolved or renamed state.
• Fabricated papers that utilise the name of a real state or institution but lack a

valid counterpart.
The most commonly used document to commit travel document fraud is the

passport, in a survey conducted in 2019 shows 73% of document frauds
committed were on passports.

Security agencies use various methods to detect travel documents frauds, which
includes technological advancements such as biometric verification and

machine-readable characteristics, have improved the detection of fake papers.

Making it difficult for fraudsters to perform travel document frauds. And
traditional methods where the Passport check personnel use visual examination

and manual scrutiny to detect travel document fraud. This procedure, however,
has numerous barriers and is not a very effective method to detect and prevent

travel document fraud. For example; if the person looks different in real life
and the photo, due to maybe the picture was clicked a few years ago and he/she

may claim to have had a glow-up and changed over time, it can either be a
genuine case but there might be instances the traveller has some criminal intent.

CASE STUDY

A 26-year-old cab driver from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, has been detained for

falsifying his 22-year-old brother's paperwork in order to get a fake passport
and a study visa to Singapore. The accused a native of Mirzapur village under

Badgaon police station, was motivated to pursue an abroad education, but his

academic gap years (he finished class 12 in 2013) made it difficult for him to
secure a visa appropriately. Sachin obtained a counterfeit passport using his
brother Gautam's credentials in April 2022, and then got a study visa to

Singapore. He left for Singapore in June 2022. The counterfeit was discovered

last year, in March, when Gautam filed for a passport to visit Dubai. But,
astonishingly, he discovered that a passport had already been granted in his

name. He reported the scam to the regional passport office in Ghaziabad, which
transferred the case to the Saharanpur police. Sachin was charged in

VERITAS VOLUME: 3, ISSUE: 2 WRITER: SASHA VASSULA FERNANDES