Border guard busts forgery ring

VILNIUS - The Lithuanian Border Guard, working in cooperation with Italian police, has detained members of an alleged forgery ring.

Joint efforts of the Siauliai unit of the LithuanianState Border GuardService and Italian authorities resulted in the detention of twoMoldovan citizens in Torino in August. Searches in their rented premisesrevealed what the authorities suspected were forged Lithuanian documents,namely, three Lithuanian passports, a Lithuanian identity card, two driver'slicenses and a Romanian identity card, Border Guard representatives said.

The evidence collected in Italy led the border guards to a group ofpersons living in Siauliai, northern Lithuania. Earlier this week, officialsdetained two 43-year-old residents who were proven to be the key mediatorsand organizers of the provision of foreigners living illegally in countriesof the European Union with forged Lithuanian documents - passports, IDcards and driver's licenses.

The authorities suspect that the couple mainly relied on the services ofdocument forgers based in a garage area where the authorities found about700 various forged documents.