Networks Selling Fake Passports to Daesh Look Like 'Organised' Effort, Political Analyst Says

The political analyst suggested that the problem should be looked at from the perspective of Daesh* being the main driver of the US and its allies' policies in the Middle East.

Numerous former Daesh fighters and people connected to the terrorist organisation have been buying high-quality fake passports for years in order to secretly travel from Turkey to all across the globe, including in the US and EU, according to an investigation by The Guardian. For a price tag ranging between $5,000 and $8,000, anyone, including members of Daesh can pass practically any border check even in developed countries with high levels of national security, the newspaper claims.

The business has been in place since at least 2015 and despite the efforts of Western nations to deal with the emergence of fake passports, the scheme is reportedly working to this day.

"When one or two [fake passport owners] slip through the cracks – that one can still believe. But it's hard to do so when there is an apparent organised trafficking of militants", Turkish political analyst and journalist, Ceyhun Bozkurt says.

The fact that countries, which track practically every step of their own citizens, are unable to detect fake passports and deal with their sellers is hard to believe for Bozkurt.

There is no telling how many Daesh fighters managed to cross national and international borders using fake passports. The Guardian managed to track around a dozen cases during its investigation. Most of them left through the Istanbul Airport. Their favourite destinations are the EU, Niger, and Mauritania. The newspaper knows about at least two cases, where terrorists managed to enter the US by flying to Mexico and then just crossing the border illegally.

Bozkurt insists the claim that the West doesn't have extensive information on those Daesh members crossing their borders is hard to sell. With national intelligence conducting massive surveillance on people selling fake passports, it's difficult not to think that this isn't some kind of well-organised plot, he points out.

"Given the things that Daesh has committed since its inception, we can say that this organisation operates in Iraq and Syria in the US and its allies' interests. In this context, Daesh is a terrorist organisation and a proxy for western intelligence agencies", the analyst alleges.

When looked at from this perspective, it's difficult not to believe that Daesh isn't acting here without the approval of Western special services, Bozkurt believes.

Great Disappearing Act

According to the same investigation by The Guardian, some of these sellers of fake passports also provide a service that allows a person, often the same Daesh fighter to formally disappear from the face of the Earth. For as little as $500 one can buy a Turkish death certificate, which can later be sent to this person's country of origin by relatives or friends prompting the authorities to write them off as deceased.

"Unless you are [late Daesh leader] Abu Bakr Baghdadi, no one would go to the morgue to check if you really died. They would just accept that document and enter it into the system", one seller of fake passports told the newspaper.

Turkish analyst Ceyhun Bozkurt explains that such services are crucial for Daesh. Secrecy is the group's main weapon, he points out. The issuing of fake death certificates is a good way of maintaining secrecy and keeping the operatives hidden, Bozkurt says.

Even prior to its defeat on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, Daesh organised covert schemes to carry out terrorist attacks in Europe. They organised a series of attacks in Paris in November 2015, including the assault on the Bataclan theatre, which claimed the lives of 130 civilians. Western security officials had earlier warned that Daesh operatives had managed to get their hands on equipment for forging passports and might use it to slip into the EU amid the huge wave of illegal migrants pouring in from Syria.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia and many other nations.