Shifty 17-year-olds all across Queensland just got a sudden, chilling feeling that they won’t be able to hit the clubs for Damo’s birthday after all: a fake ID racket has just been busted in Caboolture, north of Brisbane.
A 30-year-old Godwin Beach man was arrested on charges of fraud, forging documents and stealing identity information, and is due to appear in court on February 21.
Police found fake drivers licences, staff IDs (for where?? I must know), bank cards, about 500 blank magnetic stripe cards, and a sophisticated commercial-grade ID printer that would have cost about $7000.
And a good investment it was, apparently, because those fake IDs were about as legit as a fake can get. Detective Sergeant Sarah Boniface told the Brisbane Times:
“They were quite high-quality driver’s licences, which to the normal person would appear to be legitimate.“
The man apparently has no connections to bikie gangs or other groups, but that hasn’t stopped police from doing their best to freak everyone out about identity theft. Detective Superintendent Terry Lawrence told the media:
“The production of fake identities is a serious crime as it is often just the tip of the iceberg and typically connected to various other large-scale fraud and stealing offences.Once you’ve got someone’s identity or an identity that’s not your own, you can do whatever you want – whether it be simply getting an online loan all the way, dare I say it, committing acts, such as terrorism. I don’t want to concern people, but that’s the reality of having someone else’s identity.“
Thanks Terry, I am pretty concerned about that actually! Those highly convincing fake notes were found circulating in Warwick last week, and now we’ve got to deal with this – you can’t trust anyone up here.
Source: Brisbane Times.
Image: Queensland Police.
