With border agencies struggling to cope, you can buy fake ID similar to that found at the Stade de France for as little as $250

Forgers in the Middle East are offering fake Syrian passports for as little as $250, days after it emerged that one of the Paris bombers may have entered Europe using false Syrian paperwork. The development raises fears over the potential security threat posed by tens of thousands of asylum seekers arriving in Greece every week, and will amplify calls to provide them with secure and legal routes to safety.

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As the United Nations warned on Tuesday against scapegoating refugees for Friday’s attacks in Paris, a backlash nevertheless gained momentum with the news that up to eight people allegedly entered Europe using similar passport details as one of the Paris bombers. The EU border agency revealed that it does not have the equipment to assess the authenticity of people’s identification documents in all of the Greek islands.

A Guardian journalist in Iraqi Kurdistan was offered fake Syrian passports by two separate smuggling rings, less than a week after French authorities alleged that a terrorist used a similar forgery to enter the Greek island of Leros, before taking part in an attack on the Stade de France in Paris. For just $250, one smuggler based in Sulaymaniyah promises to deliver a fake Syrian passport, ID card or birth certificate within 10 days. A second forger in Duhok says he can procure a passport, allegedly with the help of a Syrian embassy official, within four days – for a premium price of $2,500.

The family of a Kurdish asylum seeker who died in a truck in Austria in August said Heresh Dindar, had been easily able to buy fake Syrian paperwork in Zakho, an Iraqi city close to the Turkish border. “Obtaining Syrian documents in Zakho is like drinking water,” said Dindar’s brother, Isa. “It is very easy.”

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The revelations came as Serbian officials claimed that as many as eight asylum seekers entered Europe this year with similar passport details as ”Ahmad Almohammad”, the suspected pseudonym of one of the Paris suspects, leading to suspicions that all of them might have bought passports from the same forger in the Middle East. Two of them had identical documents, while the other six used similar names, a Serbian police source told the Guardian. But there is not yet any clear proof that any of them were definitely involved in the attack, an Interpol source said.

The revelations have increased scrutiny of the porous Greek maritime border, where over 670,000 asylum-seekers have crossed so far this year in an attempt to reach Europe. Using safety fears as an excuse, Poland’s new conservative government has already backed out of an EU-wide deal to share refugees among member states – while on Tuesday the rightwing Hungarian parliament voted to challenge the legitimacy of the refugee-sharing deal in the European courts.

A spokeswoman for Frontex, the EU border agency, admitted that her colleagues did not have the equipment or specialists necessary to check the authenticity of all ID documents among new arrivals on the Greek islands. A passport assessment team is in place on Lesbos, the main gateway for arrivals to Greece, but Frontex could not confirm whether other document experts are now operating on Leros, the island where the bomber is alleged to have entered Greece. Despite promising to beef up Frontex’s presence on the islands, EU countries have also provided the agency with less than half of the manpower it needs to properly operate. By 4 November, two of the EU’s most isolationist countries – Poland and Slovakia – had not sent a single border guard, while Hungary had sent just four.

“We have people to interview migrants and the purpose of this interview is to establish nationality,” said Ewa Moncure, a Frontex spokeswoman. “They may say no, this person’s accent is not from Syria – and if they have any doubt they will ask follow-up questions”, to test a migrant’s knowledge of life in Syria. But Moncure admitted that not all Greek islands were staffed with specialists who can examine the authenticity of passports. “You can’t say that wherever there is Frontex activity, there is a document expert.”

Formal asylum systems in EU countries have far more rigorous means of checking the backgrounds of asylum seekers. Migration officials in Sweden confirmed that they verify documents as a matter of course, while in Germany, “if there is any doubt, a language and text analysis will be performed”, said a spokeswoman for the Germany migration office.

But at the asylum seekers’ first point of entry to Europe in Greece the system is often not nearly as strict. When the Guardian visited Leros earlier in the year, several of the Syrian refugees on the island noted that some people registering as Syrian were in fact from Iraq, Lebanon or Palestine. Overworked officials who spoke no Arabic could have little idea who they were letting into Europe, they said. A Syrian teenager, who wished to be identified only by her first name, Reem, travelled with her father, mother and sister in a boat of 29 people to Leros from Turkey. Everyone on the boat claimed to be Syrian – according to Reem, only she and her family were.

“They said, ‘I don’t have a passport, I don’t have anything to say who I am, so I am Syrian’,” said Reem. “What can [officials] say? ‘He told me he is Syrian. He talks Arabic.’”

This week, such fears have done nothing to deter locals from bringing food, clothes and support to the hundreds still arriving every day on inflatable boats in increasingly hostile winter conditions. Spyros Daniil, who manages the Leros Solidarity Network with his wife Matina Kastivelli, said: “Today is Sunday but many women arrived this morning, set up a big table and served food to all the refugees. Nothing changes here.”

The UN hopes that the rest of Europe will respond in a similar way. On Tuesday, its refugee agency, the UNHCR, argued against scapegoating hundreds of thousands of refugees for crimes committed by just one of their number.

“The overwhelming majority of those coming to Europe are fleeing persecution or the life-threatening effects of conflict and are unable to reach safety in Europe by alternative avenues,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. “Precarious situations in countries of first asylum are also driving many to leave for Europe. Many are fleeing extremism and terrorism – from the very people associated with the Paris attacks.”

Fleming joined Human Rights Watch, an independent pressure group, in calling for the implementation of safe and legal means of mass resettlement for refugees still in the Middle East. Campaigners argue that organised resettlement will both save refugee lives, and give Europe greater control over their borders.

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In an online statement, Peter Bouckaert, HRW’s emergency director, said: “The answer to the Paris attacks and the possibility that one of the attackers came by rubber dinghy to Greece, where he was registered on Leros island, is not to shut the door on those desperately fleeing war in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan – including many fleeing from IS.

“The answer is to put in place a coherent EU asylum policy that provides those fleeing war and repression with safe and legal alternatives to get that asylum, without having to risk their lives. Replacing the chaos with coherent policies would address both the responsibility to give asylum to those in need, and the security concerns raised by chaotic and uncontrolled flows.

“People fleeing war need refuge. And trying to build fences and stopping them at sea only drives them deeper into the hands of criminal gangs, and drives them underground where there is no control over who comes and goes.”