Credit is due the Immigration Police Bureau (IPB) and its dynamic chief Nathathorn Prousoontorn for arresting one of the region's top forgery suspects. Abdullah Ghani Bhori, known as "Baboo" in certain quarters, is helping police investigate the dirty and dangerous business of fake travel documents, especially passports. After many years of paying lip service to this crime, it now appears authorities are taking it seriously. It is certainly time to remove the stain from Thailand being known as a "hub of passport forgers".
Mr Bhori's arrest is just one of several positive developments. On the same day Pol Lt Gen Nathathorn announced the arrest of the 59-year-old Mr Bhori's "Baboo gang", there was another important step. Officers of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG) travelled to Malaysia to escort Seyed Ramin Miraziz Paknejad, an Iranian national, back to Thailand. Mr Paknejad fled on a fake Turkish passport after being given bail by the Pattaya Provincial Court in 2012 and, presumably, will not be getting bail again.
The six-member Baboo gang is believed to be behind the sale of hundreds, perhaps thousands of fake passports, driver's licences, national ID cards and other paraphernalia useful to those trying to establish a false identity. Among counterfeit passports found at the time of their arrest last week were documents from Italy, France, Austria, Singapore, Israel and Spain.
While investigations continue into Mr Bhori's gang, the case of Mr Paknejad must be resumed aggressively. Authorities believe his alleged passport forgeries were actually used by terrorists. Specifically, investigators think the Iranian gang of bombers who blew up themselves in Bangkok on Valentine's Day, 2012, had travelled to Thailand on documents produced by Mr Paknejad or his associates.
Two bombers are in prison, one without his legs, but at least three other suspects escaped successfully, possibly using fake documents produced by the accused forger, Mr Paknejad. Also said to be among the customers of his high-quality passport forgeries were two Iranians who boarded MH370 -- the missing Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared on March 8, 2014. The users of the fake passports were cleared as terrorist suspects, but the source of their false travel papers is still officially under investigation.
But that is not all. A third Iranian, and another long-time Thailand resident, was arrested last February. Police said Hamid Reza Jafary, 48, confessed to supplying false passports and papers to "international clients" including some he knew to be human traffickers. Several years ago, he put his dirty business online, and at the time of his arrest claimed to be selling each counterfeit passport for 80,000 baht.
Authorities must press cases against these three men and their gang members. The crimes they discussed with police investigators are among the most serious imaginable. If proved, they show the passport forgers made possible the odious crime of human trafficking. The suspected conspiracy with international terrorists is unforgivable. The Iranian gang came to Thailand to bomb and kill, and it was only by luck that a gang member was the only human casualty.
Each of these men appears to be the tip of a massive iceberg of crime. Pol Lt Gen Nathathorn and the DSI must press their advantage, and leave no stone unturned. This deeply rooted, foreign-run criminal conspiracy should, finally, be a top priority. The arrests are indeed encouraging. But now is the time for all agencies and prosecutors to press their cases.