Welcome to Fake ID Club

TEMPE, Ariz. — Fake IDs have always been a problem for a long time, especially around universities.

The Tempe Police Department alone has confiscated around 4,000 over the past few years. But now, these fake IDs are getting more sophisticated and making it harder for establishments to recognize them.

Just last month, officers conducted an underage drinking operation at a Tempe Tavern. Lieutenant Erik Hernandez was there that night and said out of about 200 people who were at the bar, 173 of them were under 21.

There are more and more fake ID cards on the market, and the methods of making fake ID cards are becoming more and more sophisticated.

It’s never been easier and cheaper to be a fraudster. With sites like OnlyFake and the ease of buying personal data and stolen identity documents on the dark web, the frequency and sophistication of attacks is increasing. Our annual Identity Fraud Report dives into research and trends, and showed an 31x increase in deepfakes and 18% rise in digital forgeries.

As of this writing, the OnlyFake site has gone down, saying it is doing maintenance and that they are “against any illegal use of images generated from our site. We are against fraud and harming other people. All generated images on the site are intended for legal use only.” But scrolling the history of their related Telegram channels shows the prevalence and maturity of the fraud business.

As the Spring semester starts at many colleges, CBP has seen an uptick in these counterfeit documents. Officers inspecting packages found these IDs concealed within laptop chargers, inside plastic mirrors, and within necklace/jewelry boxes.

According to Sutton-Burke, the reasoning for buying fake IDs has evolved from teenagers trying to get into bars to more nefarious activity. “Producing these documents without proper authorization and oversight is illegal, and the story doesn’t stop there. Fake documents are associated with identity theft and human trafficking, and the revenue generated from their sales is known to fund organized crime. Our officers and specialists are trained to recognize a spectrum of fake identification, and their hard work protects innocent civilians around the world.”