THOUSANDS of immigrants are paying hundreds for forged documents so they can work in Ireland, The Irish Sun can reveal.
Non-EU citizens are paying over €500 each to get their hands on fake letters and Italian or Portuguese IDs to get out of having to study while living here.
In Ireland, foreigners are able to stay for up to seven years once they sign up as students, with 25-week English courses costing up to €3,900.
They can work for 20 hours a week during term time under this arrangement — but thousands are finding ways to get around it, despite the threat of deportation.
Tiago Da Silva Mascarenhas, chief executive of Dublin’s SEDA College, told us: “They pay €600-€700 to not have to study.
“And when you tell them that they’ve committed a crime, they say, ‘I didn’t know’. They don’t see a penalty in this.”
One Brazilian source told us they know of HUNDREDS of people who have counterfeit docs.
And according to the Brazilian Ambassador to Ireland, some Irish employers are even encouraging workers to spend around €400 on fake passports to stay here ‘legally’.
Ambassador Marcel Biato told us he has seen some Brazilian people who “bought forged Italian or Portuguese passports to get around the lack of work visas”.
He added: “Employers don’t pay for the work visas but urge their employees to buy fake passports to stay in Ireland on a ‘legal’ basis.”
International lawyer Bárbara Andrade has had clients reporting the use of “forged driving licences, school letters and even fake European passports”.
She told The Irish Sun: “The use of a forged document is a crime.
“The person who uses this type of document may be subject to civil and criminal liability, in addition to having their residence permit revoked and receiving a deportation order.
“Almost every week, I assist a student who used a forged document to obtain a student visa and comes to our office in an attempt to regularise their situation.”
The Irish Sun has learned that around 2,000 Brazilian citizens alone are due to be deported from Ireland after being rumbled — although many of those may have already have left.
One Brazilian who moved here last year told us they handed over €550 for a forged third-level college enrolment letter.
FORGERS USING SOCIAL MEDIA
Forgers use apps Telegram, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to communicate with punters, who are all referred by previous clients.
Non-EU citizens with a student visa can only work up to 20 hours a week during term time, with 40 hours allowed during summer and Christmas holiday periods.
They can also come to Ireland on three-month holiday visas but not work. However, many are jetting in on the holiday visa and use fake EU ID cards to get work.
And because work permits are pricey — ranging from €500 to €1,000 each — and take so long to obtain, thousands are turning to fake IDs.
The Irish Sun spoke to a number of people who admitted to obtaining forged Italian IDs for work purposes.
But as the document is bogus, you cannot use it to travel or leave the country.
CARD SENT VIA POST
Individuals who look for fake IDs are asked to provide certain material — including their personal details, a photo and their signature — so they can be issued a scam identity cards.
The Irish Sun can today show a Brazilian’s forged Italian identity card, alleged to have been issued in Napoli in July 2024.
The bogus document has all the elements of a legit Italian card, including the ID number, which is usually required when an Irish company hires a person.
A source said: “I never met [the forgers] in person. I don’t have any record of it as the person said they would delete our conversation after getting the documents.”
They said the card is sent to your address by post, and it usually arrives within ten days.
608 DETECTED WITH BOGUS DOCS THIS YEAR
The Department of Justice told The Irish Sun that immigration officials “are trained in identifying and are at all times vigilant for the presentation of false travel and identify documentation”.
Its Border Management Unit at Dublin Airport detected 832 people with false or impostor docs in 2022, 872 in 2023 and 608 as of the end of July 2024.
They added: “These people will all have been refused leave to land.
“When a person is refused leave to land at Dublin Airport, the Immigration Officer will arrange for the person to be referred to the Garda National Immigration Bureau for removal from the State where the priority is to return them on the next available return flight to the last point of embarkation.”
The Department said a number of steps are being taken to reduce the number of people who are arriving with false documents.
