Finsbury Park fraudster sold thousands of fake IDs to criminals

Some of the cards made and sold by the pair (Image: Archant)

Medi Krasniqi, 47, of Corbyn Street, Finsbury Park, sold thousands of fake IDs made by his 26-year-old associate Arsene Meci at a flat in East Finchley.

Krasniqi would source clients, gathering photos and personal details which he would pass on to Meci, who then manufactured fake driving licences, national identity cards, passports and security certification cards.

Once the cards were made they would meet and carry out handovers of completed documents in shops and cafes in the Turnpike Lane area.

The pair were arrested as part of a three year investigation into a series of Albanian-led cells dealing in false documentation by the National Crime Agency, which had previously led to 15 convictions and more than 56 years of jail sentences being handed out.

Both pleaded guilty to conspiring to produce false identity documents, possession of false ID and money laundering charges at Chelmsford Crown Court on December 15 and will be sentenced on January 12.

Carl Eade, senior investigating officer from the NCA, said: “Krasniqi and Meci really were the ‘go-to’ men for anyone who wanted any form of false ID anywhere in north London. Their clients included criminals and people in the UK illegally.

“The thousands of passports, identity cards and other documents they were creating and selling were then used to help people obtain work or services they weren’t entitled to.

“Worryingly there is a safety element here too – one of the forms of ID they specialised in was certification to work in the construction industry. We have no way of knowing whether their clients were actually qualified to do the jobs they were then able to apply for.”

When Krasniqi was arrested he had about 70 counterfeit cards on his person and a search of a property linked to him led to the seizure of around £12,000 cash, much of which had been hidden behind an oven.

At Meci’s flat in Western Road, NCA officers found what they described as a forgery factory of computers, laminators and professional printing equipment, along with a number of photos, blank cards and fake passports ready to be made up.

During the course of the NCA investigation more than 300 fake passports and 200 counterfeit national identity cards have been seized, along with databases containing thousands of images of fake documents and images of around 20,000 individuals.