Fakin' it big time

CHICAGO

Fake IDs for underage drinkers have graduated from being a dorm room enterprise to a China-based Internet business, say authorities who are scrambling to stay a step ahead of the counterfeiters.

"We've gone from the days of having a friend with an X-ACTO knife and IDs so bad it's amazing that anyone would believe it ... to now, when they look so real, it's frightening," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. "And they're everywhere."

More than 1,700 fake IDs from China have been intercepted in the Chicago area in the first six months of 2011 compared with about 10 per month last year, said Brian Bell, a Chicago spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

A recent seizure at O'Hare International Airport included knockoffs hidden inside boxes of books, toys and electronics headed for the Chicago area, Bell said. The packages typically contained two IDs per customer, an extra "in case you lose one," he said.

The intended recipients were ages 17 to 20 and paid about $100 per ID, always by money order or wire transfer, Bell said.

The Cook County sheriff's office last month announced the arrests of 40 young people as a result of the recent seizure of counterfeit driver's licenses, described as being of "exceptionally high quality."

"They were shocked to see police at their front door," Dart said. "They didn't even realize the gravity of what they were doing."

A simple Google search turned up several overseas websites offering to sell "novelty IDs."

"Summer is here. Are you ready to party? We'll make sure that you are," said one website that authorities called one of the most popular overseas sellers of IDs.

A 20-year-old who attends a San Diego college said her China-made ID is "wonderful" -- and she is somewhat of an expert on what works at campus bars. This is her third fake ID. The first, from Florida, was confiscated. The second, from Canada, got questioned. "But this one is absolutely perfect," she said. Like other users of fraudulent IDs who spoke to the Chicago Tribune, she agreed to do so only on the condition of anonymity.

China has become the go-to destination for all things counterfeit -- from designer bags to bootleg movies, Dart said. "Sites are next to impossible to shut down. Even if you do, they'll just reopen under a new name."

That's part of the problem, officials say. Fictitious licenses are not being aggressively pursued by a variety of local, state and federal agencies.

"As a society, we send a lot of mixed messages on fake IDs and underage drinking," said Ray Rose, who heads an underage drinking task force in the Chicago area. "Many parents treat it like a rite of passage."

The Illinois secretary of state's office does have a special task force dedicated to combating fake IDs. But no matter what security is put in place -- holograms, ultraviolet images, data-encoded magnetic strips -- the "bad guys" have a way of catching up, said Dennis Krier of the issuance integrity section of the secretary of state's office.

While Krier wouldn't divulge details, the current licenses contain more than a dozen security features, And those change from year to year, he said.