AN ILLEGAL immigrant has been sentenced to four years in jail for a fake passport operation believed to have created more than 80 false identities.

Talat Khan pleaded guilty at Burnley Crown Court to nine offences of obtaining British passports by deception.

Khan, 31, of no fixed address, has been deported from the United Kingdom on four separate occasions.

He obtained the passports by taking on the identities of Asian infants who had died at or shortly after birth. A passport obtained in this manner could be worth between £5,000 and £10,000 when sold on illegally.

Khan, who is from Pakistan but who has strong East Lancashire connections, operated in Burnley, Leeds and Manchester. He will be deported after serving his sentence.

Passing sentence, Judge Bennett said: "Had I been dealing with you at the end of a trial this sentence would have been substantially greater." Khan was arrested after a long inquiry led by detectives from the Lancashire Major Crime Unit in conjunction with the passport agencies and Office of National Statistics.

Officers discovered Khan had created more than 80 false identities throughout the country. Detective Inspector Peter Tracy, who led the investigation, said: "I feel the sentence adequately reflects the serious nature of these offences.

"Passports obtained in this way are invariably used to assist in the illegal entry of other persons into this country, some of whom end up in slave labour or carrying drugs to work off large debts created when purchasing the passports."

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