3,000 passports and visas stolen

[Laura+Tom 2]

Greater Manchester Police has launched an investigation into the theft of 3,000 blank passports and visas.

The documents were in a van which was targeted on 28 July.

The Foreign Office admitted a serious breach of security over the loss of the passports and visa stickers, which were being sent to embassies overseas.

A former Scotland Yard fraud officer said the passports may be worth £1,700 each and could be used to set up bank accounts or get employment.

The theft is the latest in a series of security breaches but Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, has denied the government has a cavalier attitude towards security.

"I think that this is a robbery - a serious crime - and it will be being investigated. But I don't think that it necessarily shows a sloppy attitude. I think it's a crime which is a serious one and will be looked into and we hope obviously - that the police will be able to apprehend the offenders."

The Conservatives regard the theft as another example of lax government security.

"I think the lesson we need to draw from it is relying on technology as the government does to keep us all secure doesn't work," Tory home affairs spokesman Damian Green told BBC News.

The passport service said the stolen documents could not be used by thieves because of their hi-tech embedded chip security features.

But fraud experts say they can still be used as a form of identification and even for travel in countries where the chip technology is not used.

"That is because they can be used by putting in biographical information of your own, not necessarily getting the chip information right, and then you can use them to open up bank accounts or actually get employment," Tom Craig, an ex-Scotland Yard fraud officer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Bearing in mind that these passports can be used anywhere in the world, if they come to the UK they are more likely to be picked up because the serial numbers will be recorded. "

"The thing is the money, the end user, the end criminal - the guy who is going to get caught - is paying out a lot of money. And you've got desperate people all over the world trying to get British passports," Mr Craig added.

New passport type

Greater Manchester Police said the raid took place in Long Lane - nearly half a mile away from the factory making the documents.

Twenty-four boxes of printed material were stolen from a Citroen van parked in Gorse Street in the Chadderton area of Oldham - the street on which the passport printing company 3M SPSL is based.

A man forced the driver out and took the vehicle.

The documents were being taken from Manchester to RAF Northolt, west London, where they were to be sent to British embassies.

The passports were the new electronic variety which contain a chip replicating the data printed on the document itself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7530180.stm