A Ghanaian has been jailed for four months after being found guilty of acting as an intermediary for a company issuing forged international driving licences but cleared of forging the documents himself.

The court heard how Stephen Osei Boateng started being investigated from an inspection carried out by customs officers in relation to a package that was received by the accused containing “international driving documents”.

The police were alerted and a search was carried out in his residence where more documents were found. From these documents, it transpired that the accused was the Malta agent for the “International Automobile Driver’s Club”, a private enterprise that issues such documents.

During their search, the police also found a passport issued by the “State of Sabotage,” bearing the particulars of the accused and his photograph, but stating his place of birth to be Togo, not Ghana.

The magistrate held that the false passport was clearly and immediately recognizable as a “fantasy passport”, lacking the basic security features common to all legal passports and could not be considered to be intended to deceive any public authority.

The fact that it purported to be issued by an clearly fictitious country meant that it was not a public document and therefore was a “gross forgery” for which no criminal liability could be found.

The court, however, noted the detail and high quality of the card, which resembled a genuine driver’s licence, but held that that the words “this card is a translation of the original licence and must be accompanied at all times by the original” written on the card in small print.

Magistrate Bugeja ruled that the sale of forged documents in Malta fell within the parameters of “use of a falsified document”, so he imposed a four-month prison sentence.