[richardwigley]

The passport will be obviously forged. A hacker won't have even done a good job it doesn't matter because people don't check. This process was described in a candid interview with a hacker that tried to take over the interviewers website - in it he points out that social engineering is the easiest way around security. http://shoptalkshow.com/episodes/special-one-one-hacker/

[smackfu]

Especially since this request was done by snail mail, so the passport was probably a black-and-white photocopy. All the attacker needs to alter is the name, which seems pretty trivial.