400,000 UK passports go missing every year
÷Britons take 73 days to report it ÷Many are sold on black market ÷Loopholes may let terrorists in
A STAGGERING 400,000 British passports are reported lost or stolen each year, the Home Office said last night.
The figure emerged as Sajid Javid launched a campaign urging people to report missing travel documents after a Daily Mail investigation revealed a booming black market for them.
The Home Secretary acted to try to halt the rise in unrecovered and unreported passports which enables terrorists and hardened criminals to travel to the UK.
The Mail exposed this week how gangs roaming Western Europe stealing British passports spirit them back to Turkey and Greece where they are sold for £2,500 each. But despite the ‘severe consequences’ of missing documents falling into unscrupulous hands, the Home Office said people wait an average 73 days before alerting the authorities about a missing passport.
An international trafficking kingpin operating in Istanbul told the Mail that some passports are sold by their owners to people smugglers with the agreement they will not report them missing for several months – by which time they have been sold on and used by imposters.
Following our revelations this week about gaping holes in checks on missing passports, three MPs on the Commons home affairs select committee vowed to take action to try to close them.
Many countries do not routinely check Interpol’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database and it is not automatically informed of all passport thefts occurring worldwide, giving traffickers a massive advantage. Conservative MP Douglas Ross said: ‘The loophole which allows these gangs to operate must be closed. Technology can be made available to ensure the SLTD is connected to national lists of stolen passports so border controls can catch these people passing through illegally.
‘Stricter regulations need to be put in place to guarantee that countries search the database as a matter of course to find out if individuals passing through are using fraudulent passports.
‘Better international and domestic co-operation is required to ensure these illegal operators are stopped, and I intend to raise this further with the Home Office.’
Labour MP Stephen Doughty added: ‘These are shocking revelations and we need urgent answers from ministers about how they will be cracking down on the fraudulent use of stolen passports, including prosecuting online sites selling them.
‘This episode also illustrates why the current failure to achieve progress on security co-operation and data sharing across Europe in the Brexit negotiations risks the ability to share information on stolen passports to protect our borders.’
Once a passport is reported missing, HM Passport Office cancels it and passes the information within 24 hours to the National Crime Agency, which logs the details on SLTD. By sharing the details of these passports, law enforcement agencies, including border and immigration control officers, can try to tackle and prosecute criminals who attempt to get one illegally.
Tory MP Tim Loughton, a member of the home affairs select committee, said he would be urging