U.S. officials are warning in a new report that ISIS members may have infiltrated U.S. borders using fake passports, printed by ISIS on blank passports recovered from the takeover of the city of Deir ez-Zour last summer.
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This is a major issue that the FBI is currently scrambling to get to the bottom of. FBI Director James Comey said:
“The intelligence community is concerned that they [ISIS] have the ability, the capability to manufacture fraudulent passports, which is a concern in any setting.”
Fake passports are common in Syria, costing between $200 – $400, but since the takeover of Deir ez-Zour, ISIS has been able to get a hold of the real stuff. Two of the Paris attackers were found with passports from those machines.
It’s still unclear where these machines are exactly, but having been in use for 17 months means ISIS could have infiltrated the U.S. long ago with them.
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From ABC:
With the U.S. and other countries on high alert for ISIS attacks, American authorities are warning the terror group’s followers may have infiltrated American borders with authentic-looking passports ISIS has printed itself with its own machines, according to an intelligence report obtained by ABC News.
The 17-page Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Intelligence Report, issued to law enforcement last week, says ISIS likely has been able to print legitimate-looking Syrian passports since taking over the city of Deir ez-Zour last summer, home to a passport office with “boxes of blank passports” and a passport printing machine. Another passport office was located in Raqqa, Syria, which has long been ISIS’s de facto capital.
“Since more than 17 months [have] passed since Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour fell to ISIS, it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have traveled to the U.S.,” the report says.
Do you think these fake passports made their way into the U.S.? Sound off in the comments below!
