thiruvananthapuram the mangalore air crash has had an unlikely upshot it has brought into focus a thriving fake passport racket known locally as kasargod embassy in keralas northern district it now transpires that at least 10 passengers on board the illfated flight may have been travelling on forged documents which has complicated their identification and insurance claimsources said discrepancies were noticed in the passport details of nine deceased and one survivor indicating there might have been something amiss some malayalee travellers had tamil nadu addresses on their passports the kasargod collector sp and adm are now looking into the anomalies and trying to establish the passengers real identitieskasargod embassy a term used for skilled forgers who manipulate passports by replacing the photo first came to light in the 1980s and has been thriving due to migrant workers poverty and ignorancethey exploit poor migrants who are mostly into casual labour sometimes sponsors in the gulf refuse to return passports to the employees while some lose their documents and cannot fly back they then approach these passport makers who give them forged documents for rs 2500030000 said vargheese moolan who heads uaebased global malayalee foundation there have also been instances in saudi arabia where haj pilgrims have sold their passports and slipped into the countryside these passports also reach the racketeers said moolancustoms officials recently detained a kasargod youth nissar panalam with 31 passports 15 international driving permits and 12 blank passport pages at kozhikode airport hundreds of similar arrests have pointed to the kasargod embassythe agents are mostly in the district but the operations are mainly carried out from the gulf said former kasargod sp ramdas pothen adgp intelligence siby mathews said reports have been sent to the government and that the racket has long existedchecking them isnt easy as even travel agents and immigration officials are involved said a senior crime branch official passport officers can compound minor offences under the passport act like furnishing wrong information on payment of rs 12000 but on this pretext some of them even compound cases where the offence amounts to forgery he said stressing on the need to take tough action to check the racket