People smugglers are having to buy or steal real Hong Kong passports because enhanced security features mean it is getting too hard to forge them, immigration officials say.
This is forcing illegal immigrants to change their appearances to match the photos on the Hong Kong passports they buy from criminal syndicates.
'The syndicates need to collect passports from people of different ages and appearances so that illegal immigrants can pose as the true holders of the passports,' said Joe Chan Chi-ho, head of the anti-illegals section at the Immigration Department.
Three Hong Kong residents were jailed yesterday for up to three years for illegal transfer of passports. The case involved a mainland syndicate that could still be active, investigators said.
Since electronic passports were introduced in 2007, authorities have issued 2.4 million - embedded with computer chips containing personal data.
Such is the complexity of the security features that criminals have turned to selling real passports to people who either look like the original passport holders or can alter their facial appearance enough to pass as them.
The Immigration Department says it is a popular way to beat security at checkpoints. In the past few years, some 30 such imposters have been detected.