Tampered passport used by Dataram would have been detected at official ports – Felix
Given the security features on machine readable passports and the electronic equipment in place, any attempt to tamper with them will be detected once presented at a port, Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix has said, while noting that this may be why convicted drug trafficker Barry Dataram and his reputed wife Anjanie Boodnarine did not leave Guyana legally.
“You see, when you don’t know something it’s a terrible thing and that is why they are not taking them to official ports. Nobody ain’t risking going to the airport with one of these passports because the security features are there to enable easy detection. So if they tender it to an immigration officer, once the immigration officer passes that thing through the equipment the falsity will be detected. I can assure you of that,” he told Stabroek News.
The passports that were found in the couple’s possession when they were held in Suriname two Fri-days ago were legitimately issued travel documents which had been tampered. Police have since said that the probe has now been widened to find those behind this highly-skilled forgery.
Dataram, who returned to Guyana under heavy guard last week, pleaded guilty to three charges including forging a passport and was sentenced to a total of three and a half years in jail. Boodnarine denied the same three charges which were laid against her.
Felix, who was abroad when they were returned to Guyana, said that he hasn’t had a chance to look at the forged documents but knows that in the case of Dataram’s forged passport there was a photo substitution and name change. He said a Guyanese man lost this passport in May this year and later made a report to the police.
In Boodnarine’s case, he said, the passport was “defaced” but he was un-able to provide more information. In this instance, the original owner said she had misplaced her passport about two years ago, but it was never reported it to the police.
“The forged passports are genuine passports…the bio data pages were forged. They were issued to [real] persons,” acting Crime Chief Hugh Jessemy had told Stabroek News on Wednesday.
The passport Dataram would have used, #R0376916, bore the name “David Persaud” and the bio data appeared to be his, while the one Boodnarine would have used, #R0341097, carried the name “Christine Persaud”. The bio data listed for her also appeared to be genuine.
Stabroek News had seen copies of both of the forged passports. The one in the name of “David Persaud” was issued on April 15, 2013, while the other was issued on January 15 of this year. This would mean that these dates were tampered with as they do not corresponded with the dates given by Felix.
Asked if there are any criminal implications for not reporting a lost passport, he said the standard procedure is that if it gets lost, a report is made to the Guyana Police Force which has its own procedure when dealing with such cases. He said there is no criminal charge that can be instituted against a person who has failed to report a lost or stolen passport.
“The procedure before you can apply for a replacement is that it has to be reported to the police simply because the passports turn up in many different places. There is action the police got at their disposal now where if these passports are circulated around the world and they pass through official sources, they can be intercepted if they are tampered with,” he told Stabroek News.
Felix said that since he took office, there have been reports of lost and stolen passports but none have shown up at the airport. “I suspect that persons don’t want to take the chance to tender them at the airport so we have not been seeing many falsified documents…. turning up at official ports,” he said adding that persons in possession of these documents may opt to use the backtrack route, as Dataram and Boodnarine did, to leave the country. He explained that in this way, the document cannot be examined and those in possession of them do not have to present themselves to any officials whether here or in Suriname.
He said that if the passports found in possession of the couple were passed through a scanner or security screening system, the tampering would have been discovered.
“The electronic equipment used by the immigration department… detects falsities,” he said adding that particularly with the Guyanese passports the deficiencies will be discovered. According to Felix, this equipment is present at all of the country’s ports – Moleson Creek, Lethem and the two airports.
According to Felix there are “certain features” which the passports carry and “once they go through that scanning details will surface.”
Asked how difficult it would be for a person to tamper with the documents, Felix said that this does not matter as any tampering will be detected once the passport is brought to a port of entry/exit.
He said though that the function of every piece of equipment depends on the persons operating them. “If the human being defaults, the system will be rendered useless but [as long] as persons perform their duties in the manner expected the falsities will surface easily. It will be easily detected. There is more than one security feature on the passport so even if you tamper with one [there are] others.”
He said that over time the passport security features will change but he would not say when, how or why. Felix said that when he took office he had raised certain issues that were of concern to him.
There is no official record of the couple leaving Guyana. Dataram’s original passport was collected by the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU) following his arrest in April, and was part of the agency’s exhibits in the drug trafficking case against him. He was found guilty in absentia, while Boodnarine and two other defendants were found not guilty due to a lack of evidence.
The couple disappeared days before the verdict was handed down.
Hours after they were returned to Guyana on last Saturday, the Ministry of Presidency announced that the Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix, had launched a full investigation to determine the circumstances under which the passports had been issued and that those found culpable would face the “harshest possible action.”
The statement said the Department of Citizenship, which has responsibility for immigration services, inherited a number of challenges related to the integrity of systems, when the new administration took office in May, 2015 and has been working to correct them.
