THE number of cases relating to fake passports in Dubai rose significantly during the first six months of this year.

The department dealt with 408 cases in the first half of this year as compared to 254 cases during the same period last year, according to Uqail Ahmed Al Najjar, the head of the document examination department at the General Department of Criminal Evidences and Criminology at the Dubai Police.

The total number of cases recorded last year was 628, he added.

The proportion of passports that were proven to be original and not forged was  only 2 per cent of the total number of examined passports, said Al Najjar.

He pointed out that the increase in the number of cases can be attributed to the nature of the demography of this country, which includes people of various nationalities.

Besides, some of the immigration and residency laws contributed to the increasing rate of forgery cases, he said

Specifying a certain age for girls of certain nationalities to enter the country, force some people to falsify information about the age, elaborated Najjar.

The department is involved in examining cards, driving licences, trademarks, counterfeit goods, medicines and fake money, he said.

One hundred and fifty cases were handled by experts at the department as compared to 79 cases in the same period last year, he added, while explaining that the number jumped to 216 by the end of the year.

The total number of cases related to fake money reached 216 last year, he said.

Najjar pointed out that fake notes are always smoother than the real ones as they do not have the watermark image that can be seen when the note is exposed to the light.

He called on the public to report the cases of counterfeit money.