In order to avoid detection, he carried seven fake passports – including three Brazilian, one Peruvian, one Portuguese and one New Zealand – and changed phone numbers on a regular basis, using helpers to contact customers, police revealed.

Before his arrest in Chachoengsao province on Monday, Iranian Hamid Reza Jafary, 48, lived a peaceful life in Thailand for more than two decades. Police say he specialised in supplying “mirror-grade or AAA-grade” passports and catered to human smuggling gangs and a worldwide clientele.

The man reportedly had many houses here. Thai authorities are hunting for more accomplices and are searching the suspect’s rented home in the National Housing Authority’s Nong Chok estate in Bangkok where he welcomed foreign guests.

Police allege the Chachoengsao house with a computer shop on the ground floor was used for making fake passports. Jafary was arrested there along with what police claim is incriminating evidence, including 173 fake passports and equipment.

Immigration Police chief Pol Lt-General Natthorn Phrosunthorn yesterday confirmed his office would continue to suppress national security crime and scan suspicious passports at all Thai airports. He called the capture of “The Doctor”, a wanted person for forgery in many countries, and five Pakistani accomplices, the police’s most important forgery bust.

“We cannot confirm whether this passport forgery case is linked to the smuggling of jihadist group Islamic State members into a third country. But we can say such crime is linked to a national security issue. Immigration Police will strictly check on passports and submit suspicious ones to a more-detailed digital imaging system called VSC 6000 , which is installed at all airports,” he added.

Natthorn said Jafary allegedly forged passports – be it a whole book or partial one – by copying a smuggled person’s photograph onto a stolen passport – in exchange for Bt50,000 to Bt80,000 payment per book. As he allegedly supplied forged documents to gangs that smuggle people – mostly South Asians or Middle Eastern people – into a third country in Europe, Thai police are now seeking more of Jafary’s accomplices, including Pakistani agents who helped find customers for him.

A source at the Immigration Police team on this case said that most criminals forging passports were foreigners who used Thailand as their base thanks to the country’s position as a major transport hub. “People view Thailand as a fake passport hub but actually the forgers that we caught were foreigners,” he said. He recalled that in 2007, Bangkok’s Nana area and the Chana Songkhram police jurisdiction were known for forged passports; each year hundreds of forgers were arrested. However, the number was shrinking these days thanks to difficulties in forging modern passports and the expert detailed inspection by inspectors.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, presiding over yesterday’s meeting on the Internal Security Operations Command’s annual achievements at the Government House, urged agencies to crack down on passport forgery crimes. He commented that Iranian forger suspect Jafary’s case stemmed from negligence and this government would rid the country of such crimes.

“THE DOCTOR”, a shadowy figure who was involved in passport forgery for many years, has finally been captured in Thailand.

Police arrested the Iranian man, in Chachoengsao’s Muang district on Monday, Immigration Police chief Pol Lt-General Natthorn Phrosunthorn told a press conference at the Immigration Bureau in Bangkok yesterday afternoon.

Hamid Reza Jafary, 48, who reportedly lived in Thailand for more than 25 years, has confessed that he was the forger known as “The Doctor”, who supplied fake passports to South Asian (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh) human smuggling gangs besides selling to his worldwide clientele, charging Bt50,000-Bt80,000 per book.

Most of those who came to him were from the Middle East, who wished to enter Europe and Australia.

The clients could order fake passports on the Internet and wire money to the gang after which the forged passports would be sent to them by express postal services, police investigation found.

“The Doctor” had kept himself away from the public eye and contacted customers only via 4-5 agents hence no one knew his face and real name.

The only thing known about him was that he was a bald Iranian in his 40s and that is the reason the police investigation took so many years, Natthorn said. Jafary, reportedly admitted to have learned forgery skills from his family.

He claimed to have imported tools from China and used hand-carved plates combined with advanced technology to produce “mirror-grade” passports, which were said to be hard to detect for the naked eye.

Jafary was arrested on Monday at a house in Tambon Klong Luang Phaeng along with his forgery tools such as 18 passport pattern screen blocks and 173 fake passports, mostly European, which were ready for delivery. He initially presented a fake Brazilian passport of another name to police as his identification. The police subsequently arrested his five Pakistani male accomplices – identified as Cheema Ahsan Javed, Amer Buit, Rahim Khan Pathan, Gohar Zaman, and Muhammad Tariq – who allegedly helped him contact customers.

Jafary was presented to the press along with 173 fake passports. The event was also witnessed by officials from UK, French, New Zealand and Australian embassies.

Natthorn said police had been working on passport or visa stamp forgery cases since 2013, leading to arrests of middlemen and traffickers. Many of those cases were linked to “The Doctor”. Natthorn hailed the crackdown on the foreigner-operated “fake passport factory” in Thailand as the biggest one in |years.

He said this would contribute to Thai authorities’ efforts to suppress passport forgery and international human trafficking crimes.

As the accused was wanted by national security authorities in various countries, police would contact their counterparts and seek to arrest more accomplices, he said.

He also urged the Thai public to watch out for foreigners without apparent job and alert the Immigration Police Hotline 1178 around the clock if they noticed anything suspicious.