another good one - a chinese co that fakes US RMV licenses so good that even police officers are fooled. popular with high school and college kids hungry for some id to drinking out. if any of you oldies have kallege kids maybe check their licenses out too
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/lat ... story.html
In an era when terrorism and illegal immigration have transformed driver’s licenses into sophisticated mini-documents festooned with holograms and bar codes, beating the system has never been easier.
Just wire money to “the Chinese guy.”
“He’s like some sort of genius in China,” said a 19-year-old for whom Eney bought shots that night. “Every kid in Annapolis has one of his licenses.”
The “Chinese guy” — whose e-mail address is passed around on college campuses and among high school kids — is actually a Chinese company that mails untold thousands of fake driver’s licenses to the United States. They have been turning up in states from coast to coast.
To the naked eye — even the practiced eye of most bartenders and police officers — the counterfeits look perfect. The photo and physical description are real. So is the signature. The address may be, too. The holograms are exact copies, and even the bar code can pass unsophisticated scans.
“We’re seeing these false IDs being generated from the same source out of China,” said Steven Williams, chief executive of Intellicheck, which supplies detection equipment to federal agencies, law enforcement and businesses. “There’s a rampant distribution of false IDs . . . from China, from one source.”
The IDs have shown up in various states, each license carrying a mysterious hidden tip-off in the bar code that points directly to the same Chinese company.
Eney’s 19-year-old drinking companion said she can’t recall who gave her the e-mail address for “the Chinese guy.” She soon discovered that friends on campuses in California and New England had it, too.
More than just the rage among underage drinkers, the top-flight bogus licenses are a hot item among practitioners of credit-card fraud.
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The shoe box that arrived in the mail from China contained a cheap pair of shoes.
“We thought the Chinese guy had ripped us off,” said the 19-year-old who shared shots with Eney the night he died.
Until then, the transaction had gone smoothly. She made first contact through an e-mail address supplied by the acquaintance. A prompt e-mail reply laid out the deal.
“It was $300 if you just wanted one” license, she said. “It was $200 [each] for two and $75 [each] if you wanted more than 20.”
Photos, names, signatures and physical descriptions were e-mailed to the address. Money was collected from friends, many of them former classmates at the Severn School, from which Eney also had graduated, and wired to an address in China specified in the e-mail.
“You can pick from a list of about 10 states,” she said. “I heard that the Pennsylvania license was the best one.”
The shoe box with postmarks from China arrived in a matter of days. After initial consternation, she flipped over one of the shoes and ripped open the sole. Out tumbled 22 brand-new, visually perfect driver’s licenses.
“And my friend’s license came in this,” she said recently, flipping to a picture on her iPhone. It showed a necklace box with a sparkling brooch.
This spring, federal authorities in Chicago intercepted thousands of fake licenses hidden in jewelry boxes and the soles of shoes shipped from China. Most of them appeared to be addressed to college students.
Border Patrol officials, who made the seizure in Chicago, are cracking down on phony licenses, but the IDs usually come disguised in individually addressed packages, making the task difficult.