200,000 illegal border crossings in a year

MORE than 200,000 illegal EU border crossings were made last year, according to the European police agency.

The movements were driven by a ‘large, lucrative and sophisticated criminal market’ in black market travel documents.

Europol warned that ruthless and violent gangs selling fraudulent passports and ID cards posed a major security threat.

A third of cases investigated last year by the European Migrant Smuggling Centre, which was set up by the law enforcement agency to tackle people smuggling, had a ‘strong document fraud’ element.

Gangs in Turkey and Greece are said to be frequent offenders, even ‘renting’ travel documents to migrants for later re-use.

Others are sold online on ‘dark net’ marketplaces and on social media.

Robert Crepinko, the head of the European Migrant Smuggling Centre, said: ‘Ruthless and violent criminals are increasingly providing smuggling services to irregular migrants to evade border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements.

‘Most irregular migrants resort to the assistance of profit-seeking smugglers.

‘Migrant smugglers are becoming more and more organised, establishing sophisticated professional networks, operating transnationally from source towards destination countries.’

A Europol report published in April warned: ‘An illicit document industry has sprung up in the past three years, largely driven by the demand created by the smuggling gangs. Fraudulent or fraudulently obtained travel and identity documents are increasingly part of the smuggling package, especially by air, and raise the price of the service.

‘The abuse of genuine documents by lookalikes continues to be widely used.’

Legal businesses, such as travel agencies, are used to support smuggling by organising flights, transfers and accommodation and helping to arrange forged passports.

‘Criminals employ various marketing techniques, for example offering discounts for additional migrants such as family members or providing entire smuggling packages to include fraudulent travel and identity documents,’ the report added.

The biggest concern for the future is the increased use of high-quality forgeries of documents and new techniques to circumvent biometric checks.

One crime ring caught in Greece last year had a stash of 3 travel documents – two thirds of which had been recorded as lost or stolen in European databases.

Most were snatched from pedestrians, passengers on public transport or parked vehicles by gang members operating in France.

They used courier companies to send the passports back to Athens, where they were sold to migrants from Asia and Africa.

Rob Wainwright, former executive director of Europol, said: ‘Document fraud is of course a crucial enabler for the organised smuggling of migrants’

‘Ruthless and violent criminal gangs’