Passports stolen: Soon to used by Al Quada & Chinese cocklepickers.

Thieves who got away with 3,000 blank passports and visas worth around £2.5 million targeted the van as it stopped at a newsagent's, police have said.

The two unarmed thieves assaulted a security officer before driving off in the van in Oldham on 28 July.

Greater Manchester Police have launched an investigation and are appealing for eyewitnesses to come forward.

The Foreign Office has admitted a serious breach of security over the loss of the documents. (one for the "No shit, Sherlock" award for that statement)

The full interesting story here.

And of course the government fuckwittery go's into overdrive with this bollocks:

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

Right, so why in the name of all that is holy would a few criminals go to the time and effort of stealing them if they did not think that they were worth a fair amount on the black market.

John of Gwent hits the nail on the head: here

Remind me again what you need to wave to get more than three hundred quid out of a bank these days. Other than a gun, that is. And for that matter what you need to open an account. Or buy a house. Or do just about anything else. After all, it was Gordon Brown that demanded our financial institutions do sod all for you unless you wave one of these documents, so why should he be surprised when a few thousand go missing. And whose fault will it be when the immigration agencies get handed photocopies of the passports handed over by next month's cocklepickers ?

So passports will be used to open accounts, get jobs, benefits and as a basis for ID. Most folk will take a passport at face value and Mr Ali Quada will soon be set up as a Mr John Doe and happily living here in the UK whilst plotting death and destruction...

As for secure don't make me laugh, chip & pin has been cracked already and knowing this government I am sure that the so called secure passports are not as secure as HM Govt makes out.

UPDATE: An we are off, off to the bank with the cracked passport. Cracked by one Lukas Grunwald.

I wonder if the "unbreakable ID cards" that Labour love so much will be as easy to break. Only a blind man would be unable to see that, oh hang on.

One blind man is in favour of them, step forward David Blunkett(serial shagger and scribbler for tabloid paper The Sun) and who since last March been chairman of the international advisory committee of Entrust Inc, the Texas based security company which hopes to provide software for the UK ID cards system. So no reason to be biased in favour of ID cards then?....

He also claims that there was no way the cards could be copied....

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