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Contact:
Claudia Monlouis
Monday, April 11, 2005 - Saint. Lucia is among several CARICOM member
states which are implementing tighter security measures to effectively crackdown
the activities of persons engaged in the altering of passports. The enhanced
security mechanism will coincide with the introduction of the new CARICOM
passports, expected to come into effect in November.
Minister for External Affairs, International Trade and Civil Aviation Honourable
Petrus Compton says the passports of the future will consist of special codes
designed to make replication extremely difficult. This more sophisticated system
he says, will pose a daunting challenge to document counterfeiters.
“The common way in which they counterfeit the passports is one of replacing
photos. Looking at our current passports, one can see how this is easily done
because that sticker which keeps the picture in place lifts over time; or can
easily be tampered with. That is not going to be possible with the new passports
as there are a number of other security features that will be built in. You
should never say never because counterfeiters are very brilliant people , if
they can counterfeit the US dollar then they can counterfeit almost anything but
it is going to be ever so difficult to counterfeit the St. Lucian passport once
the new ones come into effect.”
Local police have in recent times registered much success in detecting forged
passports at air and sea ports on the island.
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