Ten-year-long NIC racket busted

The all-important National Identity Card is vulnerable to forgery and counterfeit cards made by master crooks and appear as good as the genuine ones issued by the Department of Registration of Persons, a police raid has revealed.On August 2, an undercover police team from the Unsolved Crimes Unit of the Mirihana police busted a racket that had been going on for ten years. Acting on a tip-off, Sub Inspector A.D. Wickre- mesinghe contacted a man who allegedly made forged NICs at his house in Maradana.

The suspect had assured a police officer, who was acting as a decoy, that an NIC would be issued for Rs 2,000, within an hour. As promised the officer received the call within an hour asking him to collect the NIC.

On receiving the call, the team led by SI Wickremasinghe raided the suspect’s house and found several forged NICs, birth and marriage certificates, driving licences, photographs among other documents along with paper used for the printing of NICs.

The two suspects, both in their early 60s, had been involved in this racket for almost ten years, police said.

The fee for a forged NIC via brokers was Rs 25,000. A majority of those seeking these forged documents were those applying for foreign jobs and for busi- ness dealings, the Sunday Times learns.

Department of Registration of Persons Commissioner Jagath P. Wijeweera told the Sunday Times that a majority of the forged NICs were similar to the original. “It’s hard to identify the differences with the naked eye,” he said.

Mr. Wijeweera said he believed the introduction of electronic NICs (e-NIC) would prevent forgeries.

“The e-NIC is still in the technical evalua- tion stage. Meanwhile, our department is making arrangements to provide more training for police teams to detect forged documents,” he said.