Master counterfeiter Youssef Hmimssa sat behind a 7-foot panel wall, completely hidden from public view at the Senate hearing on Tuesday. Hmimssa was there for pure shock value. Two years ago, just days after Sept. 11, he was caught furnishing fake visas and other ID documents to a suspected terrorist cell in Detroit.
HMIMSSA HAS SINCE confessed to fraud and is a now a key government witness; his testimony helped the government earn one of its first terrorism convictions. Today, his was the sober voice of realism about serious security flaws facing U.S. agencies.
“It was easy” to get everything from fake birth certificates to foreign passports to driver’s licenses, he told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on national security. Hmimssa even managed to create a special ink for birth certificates that would stand up to ultraviolet light tests sometimes administered.
But he demurred at the idea that he was an expert. “There are a lot of people out there who are more expert than I.”
Hmimssa’s appearance at the hearing was a surprise, and security was tight. There was concern, officials said, that he might be in danger if anyone knew he would be out in public.
Hmimssa was caught up in a sweep of terrorism arrests after federal agents raided a Detroit apartment Sept. 17, 2001, and found an alias he used among the documents they seized. Those documents included a day planner that the government says contained sketches of an U.S. air base in Turkey and a videotape of potential future terrorist targets in Los Angeles, New York and other locations.
Abdel-Iilah Elmardoudi and Karim Koubriti were arrested that day; three months ago, they were convicted of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists.
Hmimssa, who had earlier pleaded guilty to 10 counts of fraud, was a key government informant in the case. He had kept much of the documentation he supplied — unknowingly, the government now says — to the terrorists.
When questioned during the hearing, Hmimssa spoke shortly, and with little amazement, about what he was able to do.
“When I lived in New York, I bought a French passport on the black market,” he said. Using that, he got a Social Security card in the name of Patrick Vuillaume.
He moved to Chicago. “In Illinois, I got a Social Security card in 10 days. I take that with the passport and the I-94 (immigration) form to the secretary of state’s office, and I get an ID. Then I take a driving test, and I get a license.”
Later when Hmimssa wanted to return home to Morocco for a visit, he knew his documents might raise suspicion, so he created another identity. Again he purchased documents on the black market.
“Overseas it is easy ... you can get any passport you want,” he said. “In the U.S., it’s the same thing. You can get birth certificates, Social Security cards.”
But, Hmimssa said, he later learned the business himself, and armed with simple software and a decent printer, entered the document black market himself.
Using a computer scanner, he created blueprints for foreign passports, and simply plugged in names and other data, according to prepared testimony.
Eventually, he had a small assembly line operation, scanning and forging INS forms, obtaining fake Social Security cards, and eventually legitimate drivers licenses for foreigners trying to enter the country.
According to the government, Hmimssa had a close brush with terrorists, but did not himself aid terrorism. At one point, Hmimssa had lived with Koubriti and another cell member, but he moved out when their conversations turned too radical for him. At the time, he refused to provde them with false documents, the government says. But cell members didn’t forget his skill, and after Hmimssa moved to Chicago, he was approached by a man he knew only as Abdella. He regularly made false documents for Abdella, who turned out to be Abdel-Iilah Elmardoudi, the now-convicted cell member.
Hmimssa’s appearance was the human face on a Senate Finance Committee hearing aimed at shining a bright light on the twin problems of identity theft and terrorism. A
General Accounting Office report released at the hearing showed undercover agents had little trouble securing driver’s licenses around the country armed only with fake documents such as birth certificates.
Fake driver’s licenses could be used by terrorist to move freely about the country, open bank accounts, even board airplanes, the report indicated.
“Identity theft and document fraud are far too easy to commit for Americans to be safe,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, who asked for the report. “How easy is it to make counterfeit documents that work? I don’t think anyone here is going to like the answer. I know that I don’t.”
The report had shock value, too — but the rest of the hearing was devoted to head-scratching by federal bureaucrats describing the steps they’ve taken to combat the problem.
Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., complained that he’s been pressing the Social Security Adminstration for 10 years to upgrade its systems; Social Security Administration Deputy Commissioner James Lockhart said the agency issues 18 million cards a year, a mammouth task.
Greater training is needed to help border officials spot fakes among the 240 different legitimate state driver’s licenses, said Asa Hutchinson, from the Department of Homeland Security. John Pistole, from the FBI’s counterterrorism bureau, mentioned
investigations of motor vehicle employees involved in stolen document scams.
Privacy expert Rob Douglas, who also testified, said nationwide standards for driver’s licenses and other identification documents are needed to combat the identity theft and terrorism issues.
“A license is all that stands between the next Mohammed Atta and boarding an airplane,” Douglas said.
But such wide cooperation among various government agencies which issue identification papers will ultimately stop the next Youssef Hmimssa, said Patrick O’Carroll, of the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General. And getting federal and state agencies to share that kind of informaiton that’s a “Herculean” task.
“In many cases, counterfeit documents actually look better than the real ones,” he said.