The potential of using the forensic profiles of Australian fraudulent identity documents to assist intelligence-led policing

Abstract

The manufacture and distribution of fraudulent identity documents (IDs) is a pervasive and prolific crime problem, enabling the activities of organized crime networks and terrorist cells. As reactive policing methods are ill-equipped to handle the transversal and repetitive nature of document fraud, in 2012 Baechler et al. suggested a complementary method that uses the systematic profiling and comparison of fraudulent IDs to identify those produced by the same source. While this method has been successful in Europe, it is yet to be implemented worldwide, and there is currently little known about the Australian fraudulent document climate. In this pilot study, 43 fraudulent IDs from Sydney-based New South Wales police stations were examined. Adapting the method used in Europe, these documents were imaged, and their visual characteristics were extracted before being organized into an excel database and manually compared. The characteristics chosen are fundamentally linked to the manufacturing process, including the printing methods and replication of security features. Of the documents examined 88% were linked to at least one other document, and five series emerged. These results suggest that the Australian document market may be structured, and that there may be prolific offenders operating at its core, much like in Europe.