These are only the ones we know about. Interpol estimates that 30 to 40 million travel documents have been stolen worldwide. We know that over the past few years. passport and visa forgery has become even easier thanks to home computers. digital photography. scanners and color laser printing. News articles document that passport and visa fraud has become so lucrative that gangs are offering franchises in the multimilliondollar scam to forgers. Unfortunately. its not only foreign passports that can be forged. Forged and fraudulent United States passports can be the most dangerous when in the wrong hands. With a U.S. passport. criminals can establish American citizenship and have unlimited access to virtually every country in the world. Its no surprise. then. that passport and visa fraud are often linked to other. very serious crimes in the United States and abroad: narcotics trafficking. organized crimes. money laundering. human trafficking. and identity theft. For example. this past December. the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Charles McArthur Emmanuel. who headed a violent paramilitary unit in his fathers government. was sentenced in Miami for passport fraud.