Fraudulent documentation in South Africa has reached epidemic proportions and it is now possible to buy a new identity complete with ID book, fake educational qualifications and letters of reference for as little as R300, says Jenny Reid, managing director of corporate security company GriffithsReid.
”The raid by police yesterday in Pretoria, where a ‘certificate factory’ printing fake matric certificates, was uncovered, is unfortunately not that unusual anymore,” says Reid.
A recent case her company was involved in led to them finding an individual who had purchased a complete new ID in Elandsfontein, where a syndicate had been selling them for R300 a time.
”Most of the consumers appeared to be illegal immigrants to South Africa,” Reid says.
”The syndicate was very well organised, with a system in place whereby they drew upon a source of genuine looking blank ID books, and then simply made up the other details using laser jet printers and photographs of the persons involved,” she adds.
The syndicate was also very plugged in intelligence wise, and when GriffithsReid swooped on the premises, they had been hastily evacuated.
”The South African ID is in fact one of the easiest in the world to forge, and has very few security features that cannot be easily duplicated,” Reid says. ”In this respect, the new driver’s licence card, which has an embedded picture and fingerprint, is a far more reliable method of identification than the ID book.
”The only solution to the problem is to ensure that all qualifications and identification, no matter in what form they come, be thoroughly checked out by professionals who are equipped and skilled in the process of fraud detection,” says
Reid. – I-Net Bridge