Passport forgery rife in Batam

BATAM, Riau: The immigration office here is applying stricter passport examination procedures to people leaving and entering the island following reports that passport forgery was on the rise.

A staffer at the office, Wachidyat, told Antara on Saturday that security measures had been tightened in the past two weeks after the arrest of a Chinese who was in possession of a fake passport.

He said the bogus passport cost the Chinese Rp 1.5 million.

"People can easily obtain passports by merely replacing the attached pictures with their own," he said.

He said the security measures had been ordered given the fact that almost two million people traveled in and out of the commercial island.