Home Office Under Pressure as Trial Highlights How Easy It Is to Get a Bogus Passport

Prosecutor says FOG passports were 'to all intents and purposes genuine'

A British passport in front of a screen displaying the UK Home Office's website, in an undated file photo. (PA)

The UK Passport Office has set up a new unit to tackle organised crime after a gang used a flaw in the system to obtain passports for several international fugitives, which allowed them to keep one step ahead of the law.

Three men—Christopher Zietek, Anthony Beard, and Alan Thompson—were jailed at Reading Crown Court on Tuesday for conspiring to obtain fraudulently obtained genuine passports, known as FOGs, between 2018 and 2021, following an operation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Prosecutor Tom Nicholson told the court: “These passports were to all intents and purposes, genuine. They were undetectable once they had been authorised and the defendants were undermining passport control in a fundamental way.”

The gang recruited men in London and Kent—often with drink or drug problems and unlikely to need a passport to travel abroad themselves—who were willing to let their details be used.

The “identity donors” were paid between £100 and £1,000 and the syndicate would then apply using their name, age, and address, but would substitute a photograph of the criminal customer, usually a fugitive from justice, who was paying them for the passport.

Anthony Beard is caught on a covert surveillance camera as he prints a photograph at Snappy Snaps in Bromley, England, on Feb. 10, 2018. (National Crime Agency)

Money was then offered to other corrupt individuals who were willing to sign the back of the photograph, falsely confirming it was a “true likeness” of the passport applicant, who they would lie about having known for a number of years.

Passports Were ‘Golden Tickets’ for Criminals

The NCA’s Deputy Director Craig Turner said, “The fraudulent passports this crime group supplied were seen as golden tickets by criminals, as they allowed them to operate internationally under false identities and pose a sustained threat to the public.”

Among those they obtained FOG passports for were members of a Scottish criminal syndicate led by James and Barry Gillespie, a Glasgow murder suspect, Jordan Owens, and an international hitman, Christopher Hughes.

Undated images showing a British FOG passport containing a photo of murder suspect Jordan Owens (L) and a Latvian FOG passport bearing a photo of another fugitive, Christopher Hughes (R), shown at a trial at Reading Crown Court in Reading, England. (National Crime Agency)

Owens—whose identity donor was Lee Bowler—was caught in Portugal before he could be furnished with the FOG passport. He was jailed for life last year for the murder of Joseph Lee, who was shot dead near a children’s playground in Glasgow in 2017.

While most of the FOG passports were British, the one given to Hughes was Latvian and was in the name of Aleksejs Rustanovs.

Hughes—who was arrested in the Italian city of Turin, Italy with the Latvian passport—was convicted in Scotland last year of the contract killing of Dutch crime blogger Martin Kok outside an Amsterdam sex club and jailed for a minimum of 25 years.

Zietek—whose real name was Chris McCormack—had considerable links with Scottish organised crime and knew there was a healthy demand for passports that would fool border control staff both in Britain and abroad.

Undated images of Christopher Zietek (L) and Anthony Beard (R) who were jailed for passport fraud on May 16, 2023 at Reading Crown Court in Reading, England. (National Crime Agency)

Paul Green, the NCA officer in charge of Operation Strey, the initiative which brought down Zietek’s gang, told journalists at a briefing last week the case showed how passports which would pass muster at border crossings, were now a “valuable commodity.”

Zietek provided a “full service” to criminals and used code based on London slang—passports were “books,” application forms were “paper,” and photographs were “smudges.”

The UK Passport Office introduced a digital service in 2017, which allowed people to apply online if they wanted to renew their passport or obtain their first passport.

But prosecutor Tom Nicholson said Zietek and Beard had chosen to apply on paper, with handwritten application forms, and he described them as “a bit old school.”

At the trial the evidence against them included handwriting comparisons which proved Beard had filled in most of the forms, and traces of his DNA.

The FOG passport ruse came to the attention of the NCA in 2017 and officers carried out covert surveillance of Zietek, Beard, Thompson, and Zietek’s daughter, who was trailed as she flew to Portugal to hand over a parcel which contained a passport hidden in a satellite navigation box that was wrapped in paper and disguised as a Christmas present.

She later told the jury she had no idea what was inside the parcel and Judge Ainley said the jury’s verdict suggests “she didn’t know what she was letting herself in for.”

Christopher Zietek being arrested by National Crime Agency officers at his home in Sydenham, southeast London, in October 2021. (National Crime Agency)

Zietek, an experienced criminal who had once worked as an enforcer for the Adams family in London, was wary of police surveillance and went to great lengths to avoid discussing criminal business in public.

Audio Probe Deployed in Mastermind’s Home

So the NCA inserted an audio probe in Zietek’s home in Sydenham, southeast London, while he was away in Spain, and recorded many hours of conversations he had with associates, often discussing criminal customers who wanted passports.

Paul Green from the NCA said: “The spectre of coronavirus impacted us. Zietek decided in March 2020 to go and live in Spain, where he remained for 18 months. In October 2021 he returned and that was the trigger for the next phase.”

The NCA carried out a number of raids and arrested Zietek, Beard, Thompson, and several others, smashing the passport ring and leading to their day in court.

Green said: “The Passport Office has now set up a dedicated team for organised crime investigations. We haven’t identified any other equivalent group [making FOG passports] but with the Passport Office’s new approach they have the ability to do that.”

He added, “The Passport Office are now in a better place to thwart that sort of operation.”

The Epoch Times contacted the Home Office—which handles queries about the Passport Office—regarding the flaws in the passport application system exposed by the trial.