>>5742035 lb

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3562376

They appear to have been working NZ to obtain passports for some time.

Dr Jim Rolfe, a former New Zealand Army officer and defence analyst who lectures at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Honolulu, says he thought the era of intelligence agencies obtaining false documents in this way ended with the Cold War, during which Russia had a reputation for snaffling foreign passports.

Clearly, he says, it has not.

The value of a passport to an intelligence agent is the new identity it allows him to assume.

"With a New Zealand passport they can work in international organisations or NGOs in the Middle East as an unsuspected person.

"It's not necessarily that being a New Zealander makes you more trusted, it's just that you're not an Israeli."

Passports could also enable an agent to obtain other useful documents or identities.

"With a New Zealand passport, depending on the true owner's background, that might get you British permanent residency and you might then get an EU passport."

Dr Michael McKinley, an international relations and diplomacy expert at the Australian National University in Canberra, said the value of the New Zealand passport was its "inoffensiveness" - something of which the Wellington-born academic has had personal experience.

About three years ago, he was travelling to Portugal but was told he could not get on the plane with his Australian passport. But when he pulled out his New Zealand passport the problem vanished and he was allowed to board.

McKinley believed it would be prudent to assume that Mossad would have an interest in the Asia-Pacific region.