Housing scam passport forgers thrown in prison
Three men who forged overseas passports so clients could get round the city’s home purchase restrictions have been jailed for terms ranging from 18 months to six years, Putuo District prosecutors said yesterday.
They were also fined from 20,000 yuan (US$2,884) to 70,000 yuan.
Ringleader Zhong ran two companies offering immigration services to Chinese residents, prosecutors said.
Zhong, together with Zhang and Xu, forged overseas passports for four clients, earning more than 1 million yuan.
At their trial at Putuo District People’s Court, one of their clients, Yang, said she had contacted Zhong as she could not buy another property based on the city’s home purchase policy. A foreign identity could help solve the problem.
She told the court Zhong claimed he could help her obtain an overseas passport legally. He charged her 370,000 yuan.
“He told me that he went through legal procedures. But when I filled in the application form, he told me that I just needed to write the right gender and other information including name, age and birthday could be written at my will. It was strange,” Yang said.
About two weeks later, she received her new passport. But when she went to the consulate to check its authenticity, she was told it was fake and duly contacted the police.
When police detained the three they found that fake passports had been made for three other clients.