LONDON: An estimated 10,000 British passports were issued to fraudsters in the year to September 2006, the government admitted on Tuesday.

Home Office minister Joan Ryan said the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) received 16,500 fraudulent applications, of which “almost half” were stopped by existing safeguards.

“Our current estimate is therefore that the level of undetected fraud is about 0.15 per cent, equivalent to 10,000 applications against the planned 6.6 million passports issued per year,” she said in a written statement to parliament.

“Although precise figures are difficult to obtain, it appears that the level of attempted fraud is increasing and getting more sophisticated.” Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman later added: “It isn't just a matter of saying there's 10,000 (passports) out there and doing nothing about them.

“Each and every one of these is being followed up to ensure that those responsible are caught.” The revelation follows recent convictions for terrorist offences of a number of individuals who had fraudulent passports.—AFP