The number of migrants trying to enter Britain with false papers rose by 70 per cent last year, according to an official analysis.
The rise comes amid serious failings in the fingerprinting and collection of biometric data on asylum seekers and migrants, with some information either missing or not transmitted quickly enough on the European Union’s central Eurodac database.
Yesterday, Breitbart London reported that the EU’s border agency Frontex had admitted a “staggering number” of jihadis had crossed into Europe by exploiting the migrant crisis to pose as refugees.
Now The Times reports that migrants are using false Italian, Greek and Polish identity cards to travel onwards to Britain, with officials in London privately admitting that the ID cards are a weak link in border controls.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “The fraud revealed in this report poses real dangers for our security and undermines our immigration system.
“Countries that are a source of these fraudulent documents, especially those who aspire to EU membership, must tackle this growing problem.”
The Frontex report said: “The number of persons aiming to get to the UK with fraudulent documents significantly increased compared with 2014.
“This trend is mostly attributable to the increasing number of Albanian nationals often misusing Italian and Greek ID cards, followed by Ukrainian nationals abusing authentic Polish ID cards.
“Other nationalities aiming to reach the UK with fraudulent documents were Syrian, Iranian and Chinese nationals.”
The report also said that organised criminals had access to printers and stolen blank passports, adding: “This allows them to produce genuine-looking passports.”
At least two terrorists in November’s Paris attacks used forged documents to enter the continent, including an Islamist known as “Amine Choukri”, who entered the Greek island of Leros with a fake Syrian passport.
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