Big wins by forensic photography section


Sifting through thousands of images labelled in Arabic script is no easy task - ask the Auckland Forensic Photography Section whose hard work helped secure prosecutions in an interesting case recently.

Operation Ajeil, involved a large international passport and identity document forgery ring with links to 17 countries.

"Operation Ajeil began in March 2003 after NZ Customs intercepted two parcels containing passports. New Zealand Police was alerted, and after links between the interceptions and recipients were established, search warrants executed," says Officer in Charge of Operation Ajeil, Detective Simon Williamson of Auckland Metro Crime.

A computer seized from the house of the ringleader was of particular importance to the investigation team. It contained 15,000 images along with over 2000 e-mails in Arabic script. "With the large number of documents requiring Arabic translation, the case soon became lengthy and demanding. It took us and the Electronic Crime Lab (ECL) ten months to recover and translate the files," says Simon.

Two-hundred-and-forty of the retrieved images contained scanned and fraudulently constructed passports and other identity documents such as drivers’ licenses, birth certificates, and ID cards.

"Of critical importance to the case was our ability to show how the offender was using his computer to manufacture these documents," says Simon. "Further links were established by Constable Nick Conway of the Auckland Forensic Photography Section who is an expert in the software and image enhancement techniques used by the offender to forge the documents."

While a court order prevents us from revealing the software used by the defendant or the enhancement process used by the Photography Section, the team was able to show the Court that most of the computer passport files contained concealed images enabling them to be used to generate multiple passports of the same name.

"Using a detailed enhancement technique, Nick was able to demonstrate that the passport numbers were in fact scanned numbers from other passports," explains Simon.

Template documents relating to several other government agencies were also discovered on the computer.

"A document which appeared to be from the New Zealand Immigration Service was enhanced to reveal a previously unseen franking stamp. This proved that it was a forgery of the original document," says Simon.

The offender and a co-accused person were recently sentenced to five and two years in prison respectively. Simon says it was a pleasing result following many months of investigation and hard work.

"The images extracted and analysed by the specialist ECL and Photography sections provided vital evidence which helped secure the convictions."

"This type of case demonstrates the ability to create, manipulate and store imaging material. However, the case also highlights the specialist expertise and skills police photographers have. Expert evidence given by police photographers was pivotal in the success of the case."