BANGKOK — Immigration officers at Don Mueang Airport arrested a Chinese man using a fraudulent Mexican passport after becoming suspicious of the Asian-looking passenger carrying Mexican travel documents.
Immigration officials at Don Mueang Airport checkpoint revealed they received a report from departure immigration officers at approximately 3:10 p.m. on July 3 about a suspicious foreign male exhibiting Chinese characteristics but using a Mexican passport, prompting an investigation.
The inspection revealed that while the passport was genuinely issued by Mexican authorities, it had been reported lost in Interpol’s system and the personal information page had been altered with a different name.
When details in the passport matched Interpol’s alert information, immigration officers coordinated with the investigation team to conduct further examination, which revealed abnormal characteristics different from genuine passports:
1. UV light reaction: UV light inspection showed that light reflection differed from authentic passports, particularly the “E PASSPORT” text on the upper right of the bio data page of the fake document did not reflect light, while genuine text does not react to UV light.
2. Security features (MLi LASER IMAGE): Authentic passports require changing viewing angles when light hits the surface, making text and photographs visible at different times, while the fake version showed both image and text simultaneously, which is not the correct characteristic of MLi technology.
Further verification using the Biometric system identified the man as Mr. Jianwang, a 39-year-old Chinese national. He had entered Thailand using this Mexican passport on June 27, 2024, and was attempting to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on AirAsia flight AK885.
The suspect initially denied all allegations. Authorities have transferred him along with the fraudulent passport as evidence to investigators at Don Mueang Police Station for legal proceedings.
He was charged with using a forged passport, which carries penalties of 1-10 years imprisonment and fines ranging from 20,000-200,000 baht ($620-6,200) if convicted.
___________
