False passports have a history since 1980’s. False passports are quite commonly used for illegal purposes, it has a very important use, that is provide false identification and escape during life threatening situations (hijack, terrorist attack etc). This is one of the reasons why hundreds of people still carry around them.
There are two types of false passports:
- Camouflage passport is not a real passport, issued in the name of a non-existent country or state.
- Fantasy Passports issued by private organizations and individuals as novelty or souvenirs to make a political statement or loyalty
Most of these documents are to provide false identification to be used in an emergency or used illegally at border crossings.
These passports were previously known to be used to escape capture, during terror attacks or hijacks where americans are singled out for being high value target. During Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, attackers were taking hostages, singling out Americans and Britons.
Since 9/11, the United States restricted the sale of camouflage passports, although they are still legal to possess in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and all of the European Union. Laws elsewhere in other countries may vary.
The idea of the camouflage passport was credited by The Financial Times to Donna Walker of Houston, who said she had got the idea ten years earlier when an American on a hijacked aircraft was shot because of his nationality. According to her, basic idea was to look like “a not very interesting man from a not very interesting country”
The European Union has published list of fantasy and camouflage passports, and asked consulates not to fix visas on these passports.
Here are list of old camouflage passports of non-existent States,
- British West Indies (now various individual Caribbean States)
- British Guiana (now Guyana)
- British Honduras (now Belize)
- Bopuhuastwana (Bopuhuastwana now part of South Africa)
- Burma or Birma (now Myanmar)
- Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)
- Ciskei (now part of South Africa)
- Dahomey (now Benin)
- Dutch Guiana (now Suriname)
- Eastern Samoa (now American Samoa)
- EURASIA – Passport
- Western Samoa (now Samoa)
- Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
- Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati)
- Iraq/ Kurdistan Immigration Id Card
- Netherlands Guiana (now Suriname)
- New Grenada
- Netherlands West Indies (now Netherlands Antilles – part of NL sovereign territory)
- Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia)
- New Hebrides (now Vanuatu)
- Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
- Republic of Zanzibar (now belongs to Tanzania)
- Spanish Guiana (now Equatorial Guinea)
- South Vietnam (now Vietnam)
- St. Christoph(er) & Nevis (now St. Kitts & Nevis)
- Transkei (now part of South Africa)
- UdSSR (now divided into successor States)
- Windward Islands (now Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines) Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo)
- Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo)
