Image: TEAM FOTOKERSCHI.AT / KERSCHBAUM
The victims, some of whom were well off, paid between €5,000 and €45,000 for diplomatic passports. In total, the accused amount of fraud is 334,000 euros. Because the fraud victims themselves are strongly suspected of having intentionally used a false foreign document, the victims must also answer for themselves. The jury trial in the jury courtroom in Steyr will take place on Tuesday against a total of twelve suspects.
As is well known, a diplomatic passport has many advantages: controls on international travel are much easier, being extradited from one country to another is much more difficult, and administrative penalties are much more difficult to collect. But the prestige of being a diplomat on paper may also have appealed to the victims.
The indictment does not say where the main suspects got the forged documents from. However, the passports sold are unlikely to have been counterfeited particularly well. The serial numbers turned out to be invalid, the passports themselves had defects and indicated the use of outdated technology.
The island state made an official request to the Foreign Ministry in Vienna about the alleged Caribbean diplomats, which is how the investigation got rolling. The two main accused face up to ten years imprisonment, the cheated customer up to two years.
Source: Nachrichten
