Customs officers at the Keflavík Airport terminal seized 43 counterfeit foreign ID cards that were sent to Iceland by mail in 2023 and 2024. In the vast majority of cases, these were counterfeit foreign driver’s licenses.
The proportion of documents sent by express delivery to the country that turned out to be counterfeit was 16% in 2023 and around 19% in 2024.
The purpose of presenting fake foreign driver’s licenses is to be able to start driving immediately or to facilitate people’s efforts to obtain an Icelandic driver’s license without having to go through driving lessons to obtain driving privileges.
Eiríkur H. Sigurjónsson, a police officer and ID expert at the Police Chief’s ID Laboratory in Suðurnes, says that it is often very sophisticated forgeries, but there is a great deal of awareness in the system about fake IDs.
Driving test supervisor caught forgeries
As reported on mbl.is recently, the District Attorney’s Office has acknowledged that citizens from outside the EEA have managed to exchange forged driving licenses for Icelandic driving licenses at the office. Employees there were ill-equipped to realize that the driving licenses were forged when they were exchanged for Icelandic ones, as required by law after six months in Iceland.
In cases where people want to exchange their foreign driving licenses for Icelandic ones, they must take a written and practical test and not take a driving lesson beforehand.
Don’t rush to detect fakes
“There’s no rush to detect forgeries. If you present identification to an authority where staff have no experience in detecting such things, there’s a greater chance that people will get away with it,” says Eiríkur.
According to sources from mbl.is, the matter arose after an employee in charge of driving tests noticed that a number of people had little or no driving skills during the practical test. This was despite having presented a foreign driving license.
The goal is to be able to drive immediately
The Metropolitan Police Department has increased its cooperation with identity experts at the Suðurnes police after the case was discovered this spring. Thus, 18 foreign driving licenses from the office have been sent for analysis so far this year, and two of them turned out to be forged. Last year, five out of ten IDs sent for analysis were forged, and in 2023, two driving licenses were sent for analysis, both of which turned out to be forged.
Eiríkur says that in the vast majority of cases, customs seized counterfeit driver’s licenses in the years 2023-2024. There are few attempts to send counterfeits of other types of identification to the country by mail.
Eiríkur H. SigurjónssonPhoto/sent
“The purpose is usually to be able to drive on the street or to exchange it for an Icelandic driver’s license,” says Eiríkur.
Receive about 620 requests per year
The ID Center located at Keflavík Airport has an ID analysis tool that is intended to assist in the analysis of IDs. It is common for different institutions and offices to request assistance in analyzing IDs. Thus, 24 offices and institutions requested assistance in analyzing IDs in 2023 and 23 in 2024. So far this year, thirteen institutions have requested assistance. In 2023 and 2024, the requests totaled around 620 in each year.
Overall, about 5% of IDs sent for analysis turn out to be fake.
The ID Laboratory of the Airport Police Department in Suðurnes employs 3 ID specialists, and in addition, one additional person works part-time in teaching and education.
