How IS f ighters can buy passport to EU

ISIS fighters and economic migrants can buy Syrian identity documents that let them hide among refugees travelling to Europe with frightening ease, our undercover investigation has revealed.

A MailOnline journalist was able to buy a Syrian passport, identity card and driving licence from a fraudster in a Turkish border town this week.

The passport itself is genuine, it comes from a batch seized from a Syrian government office captured by opposition forces.

For $2,000, the forger added a picture to the blank document and the identity of a Syrian man from Aleppo who was killed last year. The documents provide almost irrefutable evidence of a life in Syria before the war and would support a claim for asylum in Europe.

The forger said they are being used by IS fanatics to travel undetected across borders into Europe hidden amongst genuine refugees. As he chillingly put it: ‘IS fighters are among the people going to Europe this way.

Undercover investigation: Our reporter was able to purchase Syrian identity documents They are going to wait for the right time to become a fighter for IS again.’

The bogus papers are also being used by economic migrants from other Middle Eastern states who know that a Syrian asylum claim will be met with more sympathy. The forger explained: ‘Everyone wants to be Syrian – because everyone welcomes Syrians.’

The revelation comes as Lebanon warned that two in every 100 Syrian migrants smug- gled into Europe are IS-trained fanatics. The extremist group is sending trained jihadists ‘undercover’ to attack targets in the West, Lebanese minister Elias Bousaab told David Cameron during his visit to the country on Monday. ‘Isis will not stop at the border with Lebanon, before you know it Isis will be in Europe,’ Mr Bousaab claimed.

It took just four days for MailOnline investigators to purchase the haul in Turkey. Our reporter sent a photograph via social media to the forger in Syria, who made the documents then smuggled them over the country’s porous border for collection in Turkey.

Yesterday former Scotland Yard detective and passport expert Tom Craig confirmed that the forged documents would be enough to get someone into the EU.

And Frontex, the EU border agency, has reported an increase in the seizure of Syrian passports for sale, with their spokesman saying: ‘Syrian passports are found in the hands of Iraqis and Palestinians and migrants from Algeria, Egypt or Morocco claiming falsely to be of Syrian nationality.’

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs committee told MailOnline the revelations were ‘deeply disturbing’.

The Mail has contacted the Turkish authorities to inform them of the scam.