Skilled counterfeiter known as ‘The Doctor’ ran a sophisticated international operation to supply bogus documents to Middle East, police allege
Thai police say they have busted an international fake passport syndicate and arrested an Iranian master forger known as “The Doctor” who was wanted in several countries including Britain.

His expertly counterfeited travel documents were custom-ordered from the Middle East to be used by thousands of people fleeing conflict zones to try to reach Europe and Australia, officials said.

Thailand has a flourishing market in bogus passports that supplies human trafficking gangs and crime and terror networks. The danger that terrorists could use fake documents to reach Europe and stage atrocities was highlighted by the Paris attacks in November.
The raid on a house east of Bangkok was the result of a five-year investigation, police said. Hamid Reza Jafary, 48, the syndicate’s suspected ringleader who allegedly operated under the alias of “The Doctor”, was arrested there.

Mr Jafary is wanted by investigators in Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and Japan as well as Thailand, according to immigration police commander Lt Gen Nathathorn Prousoontorn.

“It is the largest passport forgery ring to have been arrested in the country in the past few years,” said Gen Nathathorn. "He produced passports for people from countries including Iran, Syria and Afghanistan who were escaping wars and wanted to enter Europe."

Officials from the British embassy and other nations accompanied Thai officers from the immigration police and Armed Forces Security Centre in the swoop on Mr Jafary’s home.

They allegedly recovered 173 passports that had already been custom-made for clients as well as a trove of equipment including stamping machines, watermark blocks, screen printing devices, fake Thai visa stickers and sewing, punching and engraving machinery.
Police claim that Mr Jafary has confessed to forging passports for a price of £1,000 to £1,600 per document. Photographs released from the raid purported to show recovered passports that were Irish and Argentine.

Fake British and Israeli passports were also allegedly recovered in the raid.

He is suspected of heading a sophisticated global business, according to officials, and five alleged Pakistani middlemen were arrested in other raids in the Bangkok area.

Clients would place orders by email, sending their photos and stating their preferred country of citizenship, usually European countries, police claim.

After payments were wired into the gang’s bank accounts, it is alleged, the finished documents – described to AFP by a Thai investigator as the “best quality in the market" - were dispatched by private courier companies, officers said.

It was not immediately clear if his passports have been used in Europe’s current refugee crisis.

Thailand’s role as a fake passport hub was highlighted when it emerged that two passengers on the missing Malaysian airliner MH370 bought counterfeit travel documents in Pattaya shortly before the flight. The men were believed to be two Iranians who purchased the passports to travel to Germany and Denmark.

And two Uighur Muslims from western China who have been charged in connection with last year’s Bangkok shrine bombing were allegedly associated with a Thai-based human trafficking ring using hundred of bogus passports recovered in a raid in Bangkok.

Mr Jafary reportedly told police that he had been living in Thailand for 25 years after himself entering the country on fake passport – Brazilian in his case. Police said they had known of a forger known as "The Doctor" for years but had been unable to capture him as he only ever made contact with a small group of smuggling agents.
Gen Nathathorn said he that the suspect currently used six passports - three from Brazil, and one from each of Peru, Portugal and New Zealand.

Police said that some of the passports found in the raid were complete forgeries, while others had been stolen from tourists and subsequently doctored. Thousands of passports are reported missing annually in Thailand, where forged documents can be easily purchased.

But there are limits to his counterfeiting talents, officials said. He could not manufacture the new era of microchip documents.