Passengers caught attempting to fly with fake IDs   Security officer checks the ticket and ID papers of a passenger at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City. Tuoi Tre Airport security officials have recently caught a number of passengers using fake identity papers that do not contain their real names. These travelers are alleged victims of some ticket agents who bought cheap tickets under the airlines’ promotional programs under their names to sell to customers, while faking the ID information for them to legalize tickets. As per current aviation law, it is stipulated that the name stated in passengers’ ID cards must be the same as the names they use to buy the tickets and those printed on their boarding passes. In the latest case detected, 13 passengers were fined VND1 million each for attempting to board a flight to Ho Chi Minh City at Da Nang International Airport on Saturday night with fake papers. These passengers were leaving the southern city to go on a pilgrimage to La Vang relic in Quang Tri, and had bought low-cost round trip tickets from an agent in HCMC, they said. But all of the return tickets were deemed invalid following their violation. Security officials began to be suspicious of the passengers after they all claimed to have lost their ID cards and had obtained confirmation letters approved by local police in their neighborhood, which is Ward 6 in Tan Binh District. The letters testify the loss of their ID cards, and confirm their names as those used to register for their tickets and printed on their boarding pass. But it was later found that the names confirmed in these letters were in fact not the real names of the passengers. Security officers investigated the passengers individually, who all admitted that they brought their actual ID cards with them. Pham Van Binh, head of the scanning team at Hanoi-based Noi Bai airport, recalled a case in which he caught a passenger using the same trick to board a flight. Binh said a male passenger reported to his team that he lost his ID card and presented a confirmation letter he had written, signed by the local government of his residence area. “But he did not look confident, which raised my suspicion,” Binh said. The security official then asked the man several questions. “I asked him whether he wrote the letter; he said yes; then I asked him to write something for us to compare the handwriting,” Binh recalled. The passenger appeared shocked to hear what he must do. He eventually produced completely different handwriting from the confirmation letter. The passenger confessed that he had bought the ticket at a low price from a man who introduced himself as a ticket agent. The alleged agent also told him to use the fake confirmation letter to dodge airport security. But the poor passenger eventually had to pay a VND1 million fine and buy a new ticket. Bogus agents More than 95 percent of the passengers using fake papers are those who travel by plane for the first time, according to figures from the Noi Bai Center for Aviation Security. “It is impossible that these inexperienced flyers are able to dodge airport security on their own,” Binh asserted. An air ticket agent in HCMC revealed that many bogus agents have bought cheap tickets sold during the promotional campaigns of the airline under their names, which they resell to customers to make a profit. In order to enable the buyers to pass airport security, they have to prepare the fake confirmation papers and order the passengers to declare their loss of ID cards at the terminals. “The consultant and printing fees for the fake papers are only VND500,000 to VND700,000,” the agent said on condition of anonymity. When contacted by Tuoi Tre regarding the issue, most of the domestic carriers only said that even though they suspect the ticket agents do so, they haven’t obtained evidence as to who has made the fake papers. This doesn’t sound logical as technically speaking, airliners can check their systems to see who has bought their tickets. TUOITRENEWS