You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Southeast Asia
Interpol probes more suspect passports from missing flight
2014-03-10
Not WoT...yet...
Let's put it in WoT Background. It's being investigated as possible terrorism.
ROME -- Interpol is investigating more suspect passports used to board a missing Malaysia Airlines flight, in addition to two European ones that were falsely used by unidentified passengers, the global police agency said on Sunday.

An Italian man and an Austrian man were falsely listed as passengers on Beijing-bound flight MH370, which disappeared after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur early on Saturday with 239 people aboard. Authorities later confirmed the two men - Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi - were not on the plane, and their passports had been stolen in Thailand within the last two years.

An Interpol spokeswoman said a check of all documents used to board the plane had revealed more "suspect passports" that were being further investigated. She was unable to give further information on the number of documents or the country they related to.
"I can say no more!"
Interpol maintains a vast database of more than 40 million lost and stolen travel documents, and has long urged member countries to make greater use of it to stop people crossing borders on false papers. Few countries systematically do so, it said in a statement.
What good is a system that no one uses? And how often does it fail to detect stolen passports?
The police organization confirmed that Kozel's and Maraldi's passports had both been added to the database after their theft in 2012 and 2013 respectively. But it said no country had consulted the database to check either of them since the time they were stolen, so it was unclear how many times they might have been used to board flights or cross borders.

"Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol's databases," Secretary General Ronald Noble said.

The database is currently available to law enforcement authorities but not to airlines, the spokeswoman said.
Brilliant. The one place where passports are used frequently -- air travel -- and the airlines don't use it. Simply brilliant.
"This is a situation we had hoped never to see. For years Interpol has asked why should countries wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates," Noble said.

"If Malaysia Airways (sic) and all airlines worldwide were able to check the passport details of prospective passengers against Interpol's database, then we would not have to speculate whether stolen passports were used by terrorists to board MH 370," he added.

There is so far no indication that the plane's disappearance is linked to the two passengers falsely travelling under the European passports. Authorities are currently trying to establish their true identities.

Despite years of pressure from Interpol, in 2013 passengers were able to board planes a billion times without their passports being screened against the agency's databases, the agency said.
Posted by:Steve White

#3  There are also reports (aka rumors) of five passengers who did not board.

Idle speculation, assuming terrorism and not mechanical/flight problems:

Terrorist attack - terrorism is as much about PR and theater as killing people. Curious that no one has taken credit. Maybe this was not the final target, but just a practice run. Or maybe the message is clear to someone (like the Chinese). Possible follow-on to the recent attack there.

Assassination - someone suggested the target was not the plane but some specific passenger(s). Seems a little extravagant. But certainly thorough. Does account for no one taking credit.
Posted by: SteveS   2014-03-10 22:21  

#2  Stolen passports - Check
No INTERPOL stolen passport review - Check
One way tickets - Check
Tickets purchased in cash - Check
Tickets purchased by 3rd party (Iranian) - Check

Suicide airline bomber(s) retaliatory attack test run - Yet to be determined.


Posted by: Besoeker   2014-03-10 19:41  

#1  ..so far, no black box ping, no wreckage, no (published) report(s) of a missile track (although ATC was, apparently, able to paint a course change of the a/c.). Weird..
Posted by: Uncle Phester   2014-03-10 17:53  

00:00