JEDDAH: Vigilant Passports Department officials at the King Abdul Aziz International Airport here have recently turned away 60 pilgrims trying to enter the Kingdom with forged documents. The erring pilgrims, who were deported from the Kingdom earlier for their involvement in crimes and for violating residency laws of the country, were identified thanks to the fingerprinting system introduced by the Ministry of Interior, Al-Hayat Arabic newspaper reported on Wednesday. This new technology introduced all over the Kingdom's checkpoints made it possible for the highly trained officers to find that the personal data of those pilgrims registered in their visas did not tally their fingerprints. Brigadier Aiad Bin Taghalib Al-Harbi, Commander of the Passports Department for Haj, said all the Kingdom's air, land and sea checkpoints are linked to the fingerprint system. He said the system doesn't exclude pilgrims who were earlier deported from the Kingdom and came with fresh visas. The official said the Passports Department has set up a special terminal at KAIA for examining the documents of suspicious individuals. The terminal has been equipped with the latest device specially manufactured to discover forged documents, he said. The device, he said, is provided with ultraviolet X-ray system that sorts out and identifies all types of the inks used in the Haj visa. It is also provided with “I –vc4” device which enlarges the document to trace any deletion or addition in the document. It also helps in examining the security characteristics in passports. Additionally, the officers use the “passport reading device” which is the latest in the world pointing out that the device includes a database for samples of passports of most countries in the world. The device is mainly used to check the suspicious passports besides probing the authenticity of the registered information. Col. Kalfallah Bin Obidallah Al-Tawerqi, Commander of Passports Department at the KAIA, said officials at the new modern terminal have received very advanced training in different passports affairs especially in forgery.
