Hijackers steal British passport stash

Hijackers steal British passport stash

news.yahoo.com

Detectives said the 24 boxes of about 3,000 passports and visa documents, destined for British embassies around the world, were worth some 2.5 million pounds (five million dollars, 3.2 million euros).

A hijacker sped off with the vehicle Monday when the driver stopped to buy a newspaper in the Manchester suburb of Oldham in northwest England.

(visit the link for the full news article)

WOW. 3000 passports? This had to have been intentional. Could you imagine if those got into the wrong hands??

I bet the highjacker could...



news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Jesus christ!! I guess we can add that to the 'ALREADY' too long list of "data theft".

The words they use in this article to describe the criminal did make me laugh though.
Usually they would use the word "Carjackers", "Thieves" or "Criminals", to describe the individuals commiting this sort of crime.

But because its PASSPORTS and VISAs, they use the word "Hijacker", ..BLATENT terrorist link, and they know it. The word "Hijacker" is, and will;proberbly for a very long time; be synonymous with 911.

But if it gets peoples attention enough to stand up against the govenments plans to have all your data handled and manage by one system,...

..then thats ok

Cheers
AoN

This does not sound planned to me, if it was stolen when the driver went to buy a newspaper. Unless the driver was in on it, of course.

Let's hope they don't get into terrorists hands. They're already in the wrong hands but what if they got/get into the wrong, wrong hands. Scary thought.

[edit on 29-7-2008 by Xeros]

Well done for publicizing yet another example of govt. incompetence with respect to data security.

By now they might as well just dump all their databases onto a website and be done with it. At least that way they'd be able to fulfil their obligation to provide 'open government'...

oh looky,ANOTHER security bungle. Quick,we'd better all get microchipped to make sure that we're safe!!

How convenient. 3,000 blank passports and Visa stickers get stolen just as the Government reveals plans to install fingerprint scanners at all UK airports.

They seem like a good idea now don't they?, for our protection right?

Think how many delivery vans there are.
Loaded with plasma screens computers etc.Most thieves will poke a look inside first.To see if there is any goodies.
And they just happen to pick the one loaded with passports and instantly drive off in it.
Clearly this would have to be an inside job.