Indian man charged with trying to enter US on fake Slovenian passport

PTI, Dec 12, 2019, 11:06 AM IST

Washington: A 20-year old Indian man was charged with violating US immigration law after he tried to enter the country by presenting a counterfeit Slovenian passport as his own to federal border authorities at the airport here.

The man, who was not named, arrived from Accra, Ghana and presented the Slovenian passport as his own for admission to a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer at Washington Dulles International Airport. The inspecting officer detected inconsistencies while inspecting the traveler and his passport, and referred him to a secondary examination, the federal agency said in a statement.

Secondary officers detected several irregularities with the passport and on a Slovenian national identity card and determined that the documents presented by the man were counterfeit. During questioning, the man admitted to being a 20-year-old Indian national and that the documents were not his.

“Posing as someone else when attempting to enter the United States is a serious violation of US immigration law that may result in criminal prosecution, CBP said.

After a thorough investigation, criminal prosecution was ultimately not pursued in this case and the man left the United States charged with an administrative violation of US immigration law.

Impostors and counterfeit travel and identity documents pose a potentially significant national security threat to the United States, CBP’s Director of the Baltimore Field Office Casey Durst said.

On average, CBP officers intercepted 14 fraudulent documents and refused admission to 764 travelers every day at Ports of Entry across the United States.