Authorities in Germany are on the move to search for about 12 people who are suspected of entering the country using forged Syrian passports. The refugees, who have been reported to have disappeared without being registered, have allegedly used the same type of fake passport that was used by one of the terrorists in the Paris attacks, according to The Telegraph.
The passports were suspected to have been looted by the Islamic State when they captured the city of Raqqa in Syria back in 2013. Raqqa has since become the stronghold of the extremist group.
Two refugees of Algerian and Pakistani descent were arrested last week under the suspicion of having links to the Paris attacks. Upon investigation, their passports were found to have the same characteristics as the fake passport which was recovered from one of the attack sites in Paris, reports Sputnik News.
The Islamic State allegedly seized a large number of blank Syrian passports during the siege of Raqqa two years ago. The passports, which are actually government documents, were then filled in by talented forgers with the necessary personal details to make them look and feel authentic.
Maintaining an open-door policy for asylum-seekers, Germany has become one of Europe's top destinations for refugees, most of whom travel through Turkey and the Balkans. The country expects more than one million refugees to arrive this year, according to Yahoo! News.
Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with the United Nations estimating the number of displaced Syrians due to the conflict to reach around eight million.
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