Two suspected members of the terrorist group ISIS have been detained at Istanbul’s main airport after they were caught trying to smuggle at least 150 European passports into Turkey, AFP reports.
The suspects — one Syrian and one Turkish — reportedly hid the passports in mini-pizza ovens. They flew in from a European country, according to AFP. The Turkish authorities said the passports were fake.
A Turkish journalist tweeted the photo of the seized 148 passports. A Lithuanian document is clearly seen on the left-hand side in the bottom row.
2 #ISIS suspects detained with 148 #European passports at #Istanbul airport #Turkey
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#EU pic.twitter.com/a2jNenz4KA— Mete Sohtaoğlu (@metesohtaoglu) December 17, 2015
ISIS is thought to have obtained blank passports and a passport printing machine after it seized the city of Deir Ezzor in Syria, ABC News reported earlier this month. A US intelligence report noted that “it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS- controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have travelled to the US.”
It’s unclear whether ISIS has the ability to produce fake European passports, according to businessinsider.com.
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