The number of passport forgery cases has decreased by nearly 12 percent since electronic passports armed with high-end anti-forgery technology was introduced, the Ministry of Justice said Friday.

It said a total of 2,984 foreigners were caught using fabricated passport from January to October, down 11.9 percent compared with the same period last year. The electronic passport was introduced late last year.

Of those arrested, 73.5 percent, or 2,168, were caught at Incheon International Airport.
“We have a worldwide network to collect information about up-to-date skills used to fabricate passports. Based on such information, we can efficiently sort out forged passports,” the ministry said in a statement.

According to the latest statistics, the number of passport forgery cases has been dropping over the past few years. In 2005, a total of 3,278 fabricated passports were reported. The figure declined to 3,167 in 2007 and to 2,799 last year.

By nationality, the Chinese took the largest portion of forgery cases, followed by people from Thailand, Mongolia and the Philippines.