PHILADELPHIA -
They're snapshots of personal information that tell people who we are. Driver's licenses allow us to visit bars, board planes, even cast votes.
That's why officials are up-in-arms over the flood of high-quality fakes coming out of China that are making their way into the U.S.
It's all part of a booming, illegal and underground trade that is driving both bar owners and law enforcement nuts.
"We find these on a regular basis," said Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. Bill La Torre.
La Torre has seen his fair share of phony IDs and licenses. He says fakes coming from overseas are highly sophisticated and can fool even seasoned cops and bartenders who don't know what to look for.
"On the fraudulent ID, you can see that the holograms exist on the fraudulent ID as with the real ID," La Torre explained. "Also, on the back, the ultraviolet components are there and are similar."
Thousands of counterfeit licenses pour into the U.S. every month, including over 200 seized by U.S. Customs and the Pennsylvania State Police in a sting last year. The fakes were bought by local college students.
"It will probably, in the next five years, if someone doesn't do something about it, put small businesses like myself out of business," said North Wildwood bar owner Scott Keenan.
He has confiscated hundreds of bogus licenses. He says the Chinese fakes, which sell for around $200, are so good that he's had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees after several underage drinkers made their way into his bar.
Keenan says his staff now knows how to spot the fakes. He says he'll sue underage drinkers if they manage to breech his defenses.
"I wanted people to understand the repercussions of people using fake ID's," Keenan says. "It's fraud."
But it's not just teens and young adults who want to get their hands on high-quality, fake IDs.
"It's a huge marketplace for criminals and potentially for people who, for religious or political reasons, want to commit acts of terrorism," says Brian Zimmer, an identity security expert and President of the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License.
Zimmer says driver's licenses are the documents of choice for terrorists.
He says 18 of the Sept. 11th hijackers had over 30 valid licenses and state issued IDs. Zimmer says the terrorists used them to open bank accounts, enroll in flight schools, and evade law enforcement. He says if legitimate licenses are not attainable, terrorists will seek out fakes.
In fact, the two men allegedly behind this summer's bus attack in Bulgaria had counterfeit Michigan driver's licenses. The bombing killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian guide.
"As long as the demand is there, someone is going to meet the demand," Zimmer says. "It's just too lucrative not to."
Zimmer says high-tech fakes will continue to pose security risks here in the U.S. as long as the demand is high and the threat of getting caught and punished is low. He says the Chinese have the demand-versus-risk equation pretty much figured out.
"The Chinese are just leveraging on our law and order vulnerability," Zimmer believes. "You give somebody a vulnerability, crime is going to move there because it becomes a no-risk, no-penalty crime."
But not everyone is sitting on their hands. Last month, four U.S. senators sent a letter to the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China, urging the Chinese government to "take immediate action" to "put an end" to the bogus license trade.
Days later, perhaps the most notorious Chinese license counterfeiter, ID Chief, abruptly told its customers the company was shutting down its website and "novelty ID service."
"ID Chief was and may remain the mothership of a lot of these other Chinese companies," Zimmer says.
But Zimmer isn't convinced ID Chief is gone for good. He says until the crime is taken more seriously by officials who have the power to stop it, counterfeiters are making too much money to shut their websites down.
"Because the key to this is not law enforcement. It's the prosecutors and the judges," Zimmer maintains.
"If the judges won't take the cases seriously, then there's no point for the prosecutors to prepare them. The first thing is to educate the judges, then the prosecutors. The law enforcement will step up."
