Lost Or Stolen Passports – Prescription For Espionage

The importance of keeping our country safe from outsiders who want to do harm to us is becoming harder and harder and illegal passports are part of the problem. It isn't difficult to learn how to get a passport and criminals have even figured out how to get them with improper information, keeping their identity hidden. The safe monitoring of our nation's borders has become an ever growing problem and the recent news has verified this scary truth.

Very recently, ten Russian spies were caught in New York City. Once captured, these people did not even deny their evil intentions and actions. After pleading guilty to acting as unregistered agents for a foreign country, which is another description of a spy, they were sent back to Russia in an exchange for four American spies. Money laundering charges were also made against these people but these charges were dropped. This is the larges number of spies caught in the United States since the cold war.

One of the lead members of the spy ring was Anna Chapman. Previous Anya Kushchenko, she married a British citizen named Alex Chapman in 2002 which gave her British citizenship and the ability to get a legitimate passport. They divorced in 2006 after she had renewed her friendship with Russian friends and it was all downhill after that. She later moved to the United States with other Russian spies and easily gained entrance by shower her official British passport.

Once in the United States, she and some of her comrades settled in New York and began gathering information concerning the United States that was useful to mother Russia. She became frightened that she was being suspect and made a call to her Russian father, Vasily Kushchenko, expressing her tearful concerns. This call was monitored and lead to the eventual discovery and capture of the Russian spies.

Once her cover had been removed, the British government stripped her of British citizenship and revoked her passport. By doing this, she was unable to reenter the United Kingdom. This is an example of just how important a passport is and you can be sure that the US passport bureau does everything they can to see that counterfoil passports are identified as soon as possible. A legitimate passport is the key to wonderful travel opportunities but it can also be used for evil purposes if it is in the wrong hands and used for the wrong purpose.

It may cause some of us to lie awake at night when we think of the harm that can be done by a terrorist or spy getting hold of new passports and using them for dangerous and evil purposes. The US passport bureau is doing everything it can to prevent this from happening but we all have to part of the solution. Criminals know how to get a passport. Sometimes they look for an easy mark in their attempt to steal one so be diligent when protecting your passport and if it is lost or you think it might have been stolen, contact the governmental authorities immediately.