The network is believed to involve nationals from PNG and China.
PNG’s Assistant Police Commissioner Raphael Huafolo said Hong Kong detectives had returned 500 blank PNG official passports worth over 50,000 kina, or $19,000, to the PNG Honorary Consul-General’s Office in Hong Kong.
Police said the passports included those belonging to ordinary citizens, government officials and diplomatic passports, were believed to have been stolen during a break-in at the immigration office at Waigani in 2003.
These passports were taken to Hong Kong and were kept in a safe deposit box in a Hong Kong bank.
However, the owner of the safe did not pay the rental fees to the bank, which resulted in the bank reporting the matter to Hong Kong police and handing over the passports to them
“The police, seeing that it was official PNG passports, then brought them to the PNG Honorary Consul-General’s Office and notified us. Organized Crime Unit detectives went over last October and brought back the passports,” Huafolo said.
He said they were now working with their Hong Kong counterparts to track down those who had received the passports, as they believed there were more of these passports when they were stolen and taken over to Hong Kong.
“These passports would have fetched a very high price on the streets of Hong Kong from Chinese seeking easy entry into Papua New Guinea,” he said.
“These are blank passports where they can just put on their passport-sized photo and laminate it. And, once they have a passport, they then only have to apply for a visa for any purpose to enter PNG,” he said.
“They can even seek entry into PNG as a government officer or a PNG diplomat,” he added.
According to Huafolo, the price for each passport would have varied with the respective passport categories, with diplomat and government official passports fetching the highest price followed by ordinary passports.
