§ Mr. LilleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many cases of forgery of the standard acknowledgement letters issued to asylum seekers have been detected in the last 12 months; and what the value of benefits involved was. [11743]
§ Angela Eagle[holding answer 1 November 2001]: The information is as follows.
- 1. Figures are not kept centrally within the Immigration and Nationality Directorate for forgery of Standard Acknowledgement Letters (SALs). The Immigration Service National Forgery Section (NFS) is a national unit specialising in document fraud. In the last 12 months (from 31 October 2000 to 31 October 2001), the NFS was asked by the Immigration Service and other enforcement agencies or departments to examine 121 SALs of which 111 were found to be fraudulent. Of these, 104 were counterfeit and seven forged.
376W - 2. Many of the documents examined by NFS were examples of large batches of suspected fraudulent SALs detected in various operations conducted by the police and Immigration Service. Four such operations alone, conducted in various parts of the country during the past 12 months, are known to have involved over 2,000 counterfeit SALs, with more detections expected as operations continue.
- 3. In the operations which the NFS was associated with, the most frequent use of fraudulent SALs was to obtain illegal employment. While a limited number of examinations of SALs were conducted of documents presented at Benefits Agency offices, the NFS does not have information about the value of any benefits that might have been involved.