THE number of forged passports spotted at British ports and airports has fallen by almost half over the past five years.
Some 1858 fakes were detected by border officials last year, down from 3300 in 2007, according to figures obtained under Freedom of Information legislation.
The UK Border Agency said the introduction of biometric data had helped its fight. Chief executive Rob Whiteman added: "We're doing a good job in that we're finding more forgeries overseas.
"The amount we detect at the border is a trend of that falling, because we're successfully finding it overseas and stopping forged documents getting to the UK in the first place."
Home Affairs Committee chairman Labour MP Keith Vaz said: "The concern is one becomes complacent and believes the reason the number of people that are stopped has fallen is because everything is going well.
"The worry for me is the fact that people are finding more sophisticated ways of getting in."
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