One thing is certain; UK passports have been delivered to fraudsters in the past and are available on the black market for cheap. But this does not allow the fraudster to live enter the UK though it can be used for scams that benefits the fraudster instantly.

UK passports can be copied and can be cloned but the immigration service will not deliver cloned passports to buyers who are willing to get their hands on the prized property. They will deliver original passports that will allow illegal migrants, overstaying visitors and people who want to establish in the UK, said the source.

How true is it, we cannot be certain of but with the war on terrorism (which is a war against Islam) still raging, it is of great concern to learn that passports – one of the most highly guarded and secured properties in the UK – can be obtained if one has sufficient funds and contacts in the department. The Home Secretar, Jacqui Smith heads the Home Office. He has for responsibility to reduce crime and preventing crime. "We're the government department responsible for immigration and nationality. It's our job to regulate entry to and settlement in, the UK," says the website  of the Home Office.

According to the Home Office website, applications from foreigners to live in the UK depend on individual circumstances, which are listed as follows:

• your ability to contribute to the economy
• your risk of persecution in your home country
• whether your relatives were born here
• whether you’re a citizen of a Commonwealth nation

While to apply for visas can be a tough one in the UK, the delivering of passports under the counter by ‘greedy’ officers is becoming the norms.

It is appalling that having contacts in the home office or using an agent who have access to the officers of Her Majesty’s immigration can and will get someone an original UK passport. The concern is greater still when such information come at a time when the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is campaigning from Malaysia to Mauritius about the need for his country to impose visas on foreigners who does not need to apply for such visas to enter the UK.

How is it possible for officers to sell the well protected document? The UK Identity and Passport Service website says the new documents are protected by ‘an advanced digital encryption technique.”

In 2006, the UK had just begun to issue new, ultra-secure passports, incorporating tiny microchips to store the holder's details and a digital description of their physical features (known in the jargon as biometrics), wrote the Guardian.

These would make identity theft much more difficult and pave the way for the government's proposed ID cards in 2008 or 2009. The UK claims it has one of the world’s most ultra-secure systems to ensure the safety of the public against identity theft.

These technologies, it said, made it impossible for terrorists to obtain UK passports with which they could fly across the world and carry out terror acts.

Hackers have since then showed the weaknesses of the RFID system and chips used in the UK passports but this is not the main concern as the greatest weakness in the UK passport system lies within the Immigration department of her Majesty.

The source said that it was obvious you can’t go around and offer to buy a passport because this is not how it is done. With all the new technologies and the introduction of ‘interviews’ to fresh, first time applicants of passports, it is not an easy task.

The officers in the passport service department would have their own contacts with agents outside, agents who would line up the buyers with sufficient cash. It is all a question of greed and if the agent or the officer is less greedy to help the ‘illegal’ migrant or the new comer to the UK, then the deal can be sealed for cheaper than the £10,000.

Courtesy BBC

Hence there is no need to clone any existing passports or steal anyone’s identity to make it possible for a new comer, a migrant, to obtain UK passports. The job is done through the proper channel with officers sharing the spoils of the transaction.

The illegal migrant can obtain the passport with his or her own photographs, details and other required information encrypted in the ‘chip’ and it is also readable at any exit or entry points within the UK, the US and other European Union (EU) countries.

This service, it is said, is open to asylum seekers and illegal migrants but there is a chance that a ‘repenting’ extremist of any kind might be given the opportunity to buy the passport. Many of those who have bought the passports – at least 10000 passports were delivered to so-called ‘fraudsters’ before the introduction of the RFID chips – would do so in silence and by laying low in the society.

The new passports were introduced after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre, in which fake passports were used. This brought the US to decide it wanted foreign citizens who presented themselves at its borders to have more secured "machine-readable" identity documents. Britain was one of the first to follow by spending millions of pounds in a new secure modern passport.

How secure are modern Passports?

There were reports that cloning of the new passports was possible by using remote RFID readers or by scanning passports with such chips at hotels and airlines and so on. The immigration in the UK and the Home Office rubbished the reports that the passports could be violated or cloned.

However, with the cloning of the very high tech and biometric passports in Malaysia – one of the first countries to introduce such passports in the world – the claims by the British Home Office is defeated.

Nevertheless, British passports made for use within the EU and surely for worldwide purpose too, are readily available in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia for example. These are fake passports, cloned it seems but some are totally virgin passports which can be fitted with any pictures and any type of information including a new name and details.

They are available in Nigeria in particular but fraudsters are ready to state that such passports are to obtainable anywhere on earth – including the UK – where there is a black market that caters for such needs.

All these simply defeats the purpose of millions of pounds or US dollars spent to ensure encryption of passports and the use of biometrics (which include personal physical details) since these can be cloned or are not really checked at entry or exit points within the EU or even in the US. Most of the officers are sure and certain that encrypted passports cannot be cloned or copied and that the information contained in the passports are surely those of the passport holder.

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