Passports and Wandering Irish Con-Men: Part Four (Another shock, Another passport)
To recap: it's September 1995. We'd just survived eight months in France and then this happened. Someone stole my identity and grabbed our life savings. Now my estate agent has given me a lead - a wandering Irish con man called Peter Kennedy...
I phoned Andy almost immediately. After all, doesn't 'in strictest confidence' mean ‘pass it on as soon as possible’? And besides, this was evidence in a crime. And a lead that could be followed.
Andy said he'd inform the Irish police and they'd check up on Peter Kennedy. And he had other contacts he could use as well.
Which sounded interesting. Were these underworld informers? Barmen in hotels, who'd only answer questions when presented with a ten dollar bill?
"Have the gendarmes visited the hotel yet?"
Sadly not, I told him. At least as far as I knew. I wasn't sure if they were going to get back to me or Jean-Pierre. I'd check tomorrow if I hadn't heard by then. And pray they'd phoned Jean-Pierre in the meantime - I had zero faith in my ability to make myself understood by the gendarmes.
"Did your estate agent say anything about Peter Kennedy being involved in personal finance?"
No, other than fraud. Which I suppose could be loosely termed as very personal finance.
"Do you know any accountants or financial planners locally?" He was off again. Obviously he'd given up on doctors and was now moving through the rest of the professional classes.
"No," I replied, waiting for the follow-up on bankers, solicitors and veterinary practitioners.
I think he must have realised at this point the obtuse nature of his questioning. "You see," he explained, "I'm sure we're dealing with someone who knows the Financial Services Act intimately. This man is not an amateur."
And it wasn't easy to set up bank accounts nowadays, he continued. Most countries had anti money-laundering legislation. Spain was certain to be a signatory to all the international conventions.
Which made me think. How did someone manage to set up a bank account without identification? If governments were so hot against money laundering these days, how did he do it?
"He'd need a passport or a recognised identity card. Some banks insist on a banker's reference as well."
Which is what I'd thought. Credit Agricole had insisted on both our passports.
So how was this account in Spain opened?
I went back and had a look at the bank account fax. Reading and re-reading all the details. Chasing down every word and number.
Which is when I noticed the line of numbers underneath my name on the account. It wasn't a good copy - probably a fax of a photocopy of a photocopy. But I could make out the letters HIF - or was it MIF - followed by ten digits. And it wasn't the account number.
But there was something vaguely familiar about those numbers.
I'd seen them before ... recently.
My passport!
I shot out of the settee and nearly collided with the door in my haste to check. I dug out my passport and threw it open. The last nine digits on the Spanish bank account were my passport number.
I was totally thrown. Up until noticing the passport number, everything could be traced back to Dublin. It was an inside job. They had our bond details, our address, our signatures, the cancellation form. Everything.
But they'd never had my passport number.
Crime suddenly stepped a thousand miles closer. My passport had never left the house - except when I had it in my hand.
Did that mean someone had broken into our house?
Peter Kennedy?
It was a very fraught ten minutes that followed as the two of us brain-stormed the ramifications. We'd have to get the locks changed. Dare we leave the house unattended? How had someone broken in with Gypsy in the house? Had they waited until we'd all gone off in the car? Was the house being watched?
And why had the Spanish bank added a tenth digit to my passport number?
I looked at it again. It had a leading six. Why?
Perhaps it wasn't my passport?
Clearly nine digits out of ten were too much of a coincidence but was there another explanation? One that didn't involve anyone breaking into our house?
More brain-storming.
What happens when someone loses a passport? Could someone claim they were me and that my passport had been lost or stolen? Would the Passport Office believe them - especially if they had a doctor witness their signature on the claim form?
And would the re-issued document have the same number as the original - but with an extra digit, a leading six to show it was a re-issue?
I'd seen enough plausible faxes in the previous hour to know that whoever was impersonating me would be capable of fooling a Passport Office.
So I rang the Passport Office.
(next instalment: Robots destroy the British Consulate)
I phoned Andy almost immediately. After all, doesn't 'in strictest confidence' mean ‘pass it on as soon as possible’? And besides, this was evidence in a crime. And a lead that could be followed.
Andy said he'd inform the Irish police and they'd check up on Peter Kennedy. And he had other contacts he could use as well.
Which sounded interesting. Were these underworld informers? Barmen in hotels, who'd only answer questions when presented with a ten dollar bill?
"Have the gendarmes visited the hotel yet?"
Sadly not, I told him. At least as far as I knew. I wasn't sure if they were going to get back to me or Jean-Pierre. I'd check tomorrow if I hadn't heard by then. And pray they'd phoned Jean-Pierre in the meantime - I had zero faith in my ability to make myself understood by the gendarmes.
"Did your estate agent say anything about Peter Kennedy being involved in personal finance?"
No, other than fraud. Which I suppose could be loosely termed as very personal finance.
"Do you know any accountants or financial planners locally?" He was off again. Obviously he'd given up on doctors and was now moving through the rest of the professional classes.
"No," I replied, waiting for the follow-up on bankers, solicitors and veterinary practitioners.
I think he must have realised at this point the obtuse nature of his questioning. "You see," he explained, "I'm sure we're dealing with someone who knows the Financial Services Act intimately. This man is not an amateur."
And it wasn't easy to set up bank accounts nowadays, he continued. Most countries had anti money-laundering legislation. Spain was certain to be a signatory to all the international conventions.
Which made me think. How did someone manage to set up a bank account without identification? If governments were so hot against money laundering these days, how did he do it?
"He'd need a passport or a recognised identity card. Some banks insist on a banker's reference as well."
Which is what I'd thought. Credit Agricole had insisted on both our passports.
So how was this account in Spain opened?
I went back and had a look at the bank account fax. Reading and re-reading all the details. Chasing down every word and number.
Which is when I noticed the line of numbers underneath my name on the account. It wasn't a good copy - probably a fax of a photocopy of a photocopy. But I could make out the letters HIF - or was it MIF - followed by ten digits. And it wasn't the account number.
But there was something vaguely familiar about those numbers.
I'd seen them before ... recently.
My passport!
I shot out of the settee and nearly collided with the door in my haste to check. I dug out my passport and threw it open. The last nine digits on the Spanish bank account were my passport number.
I was totally thrown. Up until noticing the passport number, everything could be traced back to Dublin. It was an inside job. They had our bond details, our address, our signatures, the cancellation form. Everything.
But they'd never had my passport number.
Crime suddenly stepped a thousand miles closer. My passport had never left the house - except when I had it in my hand.
Did that mean someone had broken into our house?
Peter Kennedy?
It was a very fraught ten minutes that followed as the two of us brain-stormed the ramifications. We'd have to get the locks changed. Dare we leave the house unattended? How had someone broken in with Gypsy in the house? Had they waited until we'd all gone off in the car? Was the house being watched?
And why had the Spanish bank added a tenth digit to my passport number?
I looked at it again. It had a leading six. Why?
Perhaps it wasn't my passport?
Clearly nine digits out of ten were too much of a coincidence but was there another explanation? One that didn't involve anyone breaking into our house?
More brain-storming.
What happens when someone loses a passport? Could someone claim they were me and that my passport had been lost or stolen? Would the Passport Office believe them - especially if they had a doctor witness their signature on the claim form?
And would the re-issued document have the same number as the original - but with an extra digit, a leading six to show it was a re-issue?
I'd seen enough plausible faxes in the previous hour to know that whoever was impersonating me would be capable of fooling a Passport Office.
So I rang the Passport Office.
(next instalment: Robots destroy the British Consulate)