Tripoli, 21 April:
Egyptian police have arrested a Libyan and Egyptian gang that was providing Egyptians with fake Libyan nationality documents to . . .[restrict]enable them to travel to Libya and work here.
Officers in Giza say they have managed to capture three Libyans and five Egyptians whom they have accused of forging documents enabling illegal workers to pretend they were Libyan citizens. The eight were reportedly caught in possession of forged passports, birth certificates and a number of Libyan nationality certificates.
An investigation has been launched by the local prosecution office.
Cairo newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabe’a reported that officers in Giza were tipped off that a group was running an illegal recruitment agency from an apartment in the Agouza district. When police raided the apartment, they found 683 passports, 15 Libyan nationality certificates supposedly issued by the Libyan Passports and Nationality Department and eight birth certificates supposed to have been issued by the Directorate of Health Affairs.
They accused are said to have admitted renting the apartment to send illegal workers abroad and that they had obtained the certificates with the help of unnamed others who were recruiting young people hoping to pretend they were Libyans in order to work in the country.
Two other people detained in the raid said that they had gone to the apartment to collect passports and visas for friends.
On Thursday, Egyptian immigration authorities at Cairo Airport on Thursday thwarted the first known attempt to forge a Libyan visa. An Egyptian passenger who was detained claimed to have paid forgers in Cairo £E 1,5000 for the visa. [/restrict]
