SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Prof John La Guerre fears that a na­tion­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card bear­ing the name of a Venezue­lan na­tion­al which sparked an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and claims of vot­er padding could have im­pli­ca­tions for the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

La Guerre made the com­ment one day af­ter the EBC stat­ed that it had com­plet­ed a thor­ough search of its data­base and can as­sure that no T&T na­tion­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card was ever is­sued to Juan-Luis Mar­cano Navar­ro, nor does his name ex­ist on its data­base.

The ID card al­so car­ries the same num­ber as Tu­na­puna res­i­dent Temi­ka Rane Smart.

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the ID card sur­faced on so­cial me­dia on Sun­day as the State gets ready to roll out an amnesty pol­i­cy to al­low Venezue­lan mi­grants to live and work in T&T for one year.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has re­quest­ed an ur­gent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the mat­ter to de­ter­mine the facts.

Yes­ter­day, La Guerre said if the fake ID was now the sub­ject of a probe, the EBC would now have to im­ple­ment reg­u­la­tions with its reg­is­tra­tion and re­new­al process to en­sure all IDs are au­then­tic.

He said the news of the false ID can erode the EBC’s con­fi­dence.

“In any elec­toral process, the ma­jor prob­lem is con­fi­dence. If peo­ple be­gin to be­come un­easy and lose con­fi­dence in EBC’s rules and doc­u­men­ta­tion, then they would lose faith in the sys­tem as we go in­to the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions due this year.”

Giv­en the his­to­ry of our elec­tions over the years, one which has been taint­ed with vot­er padding, La Guerre said the EBC would have to re­build its trust with the vot­ing pop­u­la­tion.

If this is a bo­gus ID, with many oth­ers cir­cu­lat­ing, La Guerre said, the EBC would have to call on first time ap­pli­cants or those seek­ing an ID re­new­al to pro­duce sup­port­ive doc­u­ments such as a pay slip, job let­ter, ev­i­dence of a Board of In­land Rev­enue and NIS num­bers along with the re­quired birth pa­per, pass­port or dri­ver’s per­mit.

“For too long it has been an au­to­mat­ic process with the re­new­al of ID cards. I think the EBC needs to look at their se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem. There should be a method to not on­ly put in checks and bal­ances but pro­vi­sions for cor­rob­o­ra­tive ev­i­dence. This fake ID card is def­i­nite­ly dis­turb­ing and could have im­pli­ca­tions for them.”

He said it would be nor­mal for EBC em­ploy­ees to make slip-ups which he de­scribed as bu­reau­crat­ic bungling.

“But I don’t think it’s iden­ti­ty theft in this case.”

For two in­di­vid­u­als to have the same na­tion­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber, La Guerre said: “It is clear that forgery is tak­ing place.”

He said it was not dif­fi­cult for Venezue­lans or any­one to pro­duce a fake ID.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figueira said one pos­si­ble out­come of this in­ci­dent “points to an or­gan­ised crime en­ter­prise where peo­ple are cloning ID cards.”

Such in­di­vid­u­als have the ca­pa­bil­i­ties to pen­e­trate all gov­ern­ment agen­cies that is­sue iden­ti­ties.

In or­der to clone a card, Figueira said, “it’s hard­ly like­ly it was an in­side job. So this is an or­gan­ised crime that is sell­ing bo­gus iden­ti­fi­ca­tions to Venezue­lans for a high price. Venezue­lans are high­ly skilled in forgery.”

The fact that Venezue­lans are be­fore our courts for cred­it card fraud, Figueira said, speaks vol­umes.

He said apart from them com­ing here il­le­gal­ly, Venezue­lans can al­so pur­chase pack­ages for false IDs, job let­ters, pass­ports, payslips, trans­port, ac­com­mo­da­tion and be­ing a home own­er.

“These bo­gus IDs are of­fered to peo­ple who have mon­ey. It is nor­mal­ly paid in US dol­lars. To get a false ID or pass­port a Venezue­lan can pay a min­i­mum of US$5,000.....the US dol­lar is a high­ly sought com­mod­i­ty in Venezuela.”

Figueira said Venezue­lans are buy­ing fake Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic IDs which they use to get in­to the US main­land.

He said the EBC may have to re­view its en­tire op­er­a­tional pro­ce­dure to ramp up its se­cu­ri­ty data­base.

“They may al­so have to up­grade the card to pre­vent peo­ple from copy­ing it.”

A text mes­sage left on EBC’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Do­minic Hinds’ cell­phone yes­ter­day was not re­turned.