Passport ring served terrorists, police say
10 nabbed in raids in Spain, Thailand
MADRID — Police in Spain and Thailand arrested 10 people suspected of operating a counterfeiting network that provided fake European passports to terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda in order to smooth their entry into Western countries, the Spanish Interior Ministry said yesterday.
Seven people — six Pakistanis and one Nigerian — were arrested in Barcelona in raids late Tuesday and early yesterday. Three more people — two Pakistanis and one Thai — were arrested in Bangkok in the same period, the ministry said in a statement.
One of the Pakistanis arrested in Bangkok, Muhammad Athar Butt, 42, known as Tony, directed the forging operation from Thailand, according to a Spanish security official. Butt was also in charge of cells in Brussels and London, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was talking about a current investigation.
The arrests struck at “an important passport operation for Al Qaeda, weakening its international counterfeiting apparatus, and therefore, its capacity to operate,’’ the ministry statement said, adding the raids came after a year-and-a-half-long international investigation, which is continuing.
The police said the network was linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan terror group behind attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 that killed at least 163 people. The network also provided counterfeit passports and other documents to the Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan separatist group defeated last year by the government after decades of war.
The terror organizations would request forged passports from the network according to nationality and age, the authorities said. Members of the network would then steal passports from tourists, mainly in Barcelona, and send them to Thailand where they were forwarded to the terror groups, they said.
The ministry statement hinted at how the plot was discovered, saying that officials had “detected the transport to Thailand of numerous passports stolen from Spain.’’
The raids took place amid heightened concern among American and European officials over a possible terrorist strike in Europe. In October, the State Department in Washington issued an alert for American travelers to Europe to be vigilant about possible attacks.
Counterterrorism specialists say that disrupting facilitators who provide militants valuable services can sharply disrupt the operations of the terrorist groups, at least until they find replacements.
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