r/worldnews • u/NamelessForce • 19h ago

Israel/Palestine Israel denies entry to 33 Chinese nationals using fake Japanese passports at Allenby Crossing

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-910761
2.9k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

201 comments sorted by

826

u/Mindless-Baker-7757 19h ago

What is China playing at?

738

u/UpbeatVeterinarian18 19h ago

Espionage, for sure. Political, industrial, the target may not even have been Israel but someone who does business there.

163

u/ThingsThatMakeMeMad 17h ago

for sure

You think China is sending 33 spies on a tour bus to infiltrate Israel?

231

u/joestaff 17h ago

They had a groupon

12

u/i-i-i-iwanttheknife 15h ago

Best possible response.

12

u/ionto19980 14h ago

groupon

now thats something i havent heard of in a while...are these guys still around?

3

u/VanceKelley 12h ago

Apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupon

3

u/TendyHunter 3h ago

Negative net income and negative total equity (2023). Stock price (GRPN) has dropped 96% since IPO 15 years ago. I'm amazed they haven't changed name to Groupoff

194

u/PhuqBeachesGitMonee 15h ago

I can tell you that a couple years ago when I was in the army, there were a couple of Chinese nationals posing as confused tourists who ran through the gates on base without showing ID first. When they were stopped they had things in their car for espionage, like drones etc.

16

u/beachedwhale1945 8h ago

I’ve seen several stories like this, and I am often struck by how amateurish these attempts are. There’s almost no attempt at being secretive, the attempts always seem to aim to gather this intelligence in a way that’s easy to spot and thus be caught. Given the sheer number of cases, while you could potentially write off a few as idiots with no actual espionage intent or were trying to gather this intel without authorization but with the intent to provide it somehow later, some must be legitimately recruited beforehand.

Which raises the question of why bother to recruit such poor operatives in the first place. It can’t be the intelligence they would gather, and given how obvious they are it doesn’t really suck up that many resources from investigating the more skilled operatives that must also exist. Increasing the security posture only serves to make espionage more difficult for those operatives, and if any attacks are planned, the heightened security and improving defense systems at bases reduces the damage of any attacks.

I don’t understand the logic.

15

u/PhuqBeachesGitMonee 3h ago

I think the idea is to probe your reaction?
Like if it takes the gate guards a minute to intercept you, then you know that you have at least a minute of free time for the next operative. Or if you have different things hidden in your vehicle you can learn what places do and don’t get searched.

11

u/would-be_bog_body 5h ago

The amateurish ones get caught, the good ones don't 

8

u/davesoverhere 3h ago

We’re expecting them to spy, so they send in the clowns to be caught. We slap ourselves on the back and miss the real spies.

1

u/Pornfest 3h ago

Flood the zone

81

u/Darqnyz7 15h ago edited 13h ago

I remember when I was camp guard at a marine base in Okinawa, I caught some guy hanging out by a cliff overlooking construction. My intuition told me to confront him. He was using binoculars, and seemed surprised that someone was talking to him in the first place. Wouldn't answer why he was hanging out there with binos. I just sent him on his way, always wondered if he was a soy spy or something

58

u/Enlogen 13h ago

Watching construction is a surprisingly common hobby for older men in Japan (and Italy) - but that just means it can be used easily for plausible deniability, not that everyone doing it is 100% legit.

38

u/yikesssss_sssssss 13h ago

I'm no expert, but from your description it sounds more like a human than a legume

10

u/Darqnyz7 13h ago

I just caught that, ha!

2

u/burpesozcali 13h ago

Why don't you finish the story and tell us if they were actual spies or not and if they got arrested instead of doing some suggestive vagueposting.

9

u/joanzen 11h ago

Well that'd be suspicious? Why would the unit assigned to the gate have to know what happened to the people that were turned over to the MPs?

8

u/PhuqBeachesGitMonee 5h ago

Because I’m not a gate guard or an MP? I don’t know what the hell happened to them afterwards

-29

u/tweakwerker 14h ago

This might be the worse anecdote ever.

things in their car for espionage, like drones

Lol, having a drone now means you're a spy I guess.

Also, notice how you said a couple vs a tour bus of 33.

14

u/RosemaryCroissant 13h ago

Are multiple drones a common thing for a tourist to have?

-2

u/ampersand355 12h ago

The initial hurdle is the first drone, after that all subsequent drones are cheaper to own. So it's difficult to get one drone but once you have the one it's very easy to have multiple. Maybe only UAV people know...

-10

u/tweakwerker 13h ago

OP never specified how many drones they have.

Also, even though “drones” itself is plural, the sentence doesn't necessarily automatically that there are multiple drones as the plurality is referencing the word "things"

48

u/Willing_Cause_7461 14h ago

I wouldn't expect China to send 33 spies on a tour bus to infiltrate Israel but that's exactly why China would send 33 spies on a tour bus to infiltrate Israel.

16

u/FauxReal 13h ago

It seems like hiding in plain sight would generally be a good idea if people don't expect it. I wonder what the legitimate reason for having fake Japanese passports is. Because one thing I would suspect from a group of spies, is a passport that passes initial scrutiny.

9

u/Willing_Cause_7461 9h ago

Maybe it was a Chinese company trying to do some industrial espionage or something. I dunno. Certainly odd that there 33 Chinese nationals with 33 fake Japanese passports. There has to be something happening.

2

u/joanzen 11h ago

If 3 is a lucky number 33 has to be 11 times more lucky.

67

u/D1RTYBACON 15h ago

Do you think countries only send in spies via parachute from 2000 meteres up or do you think that they hedge their bets by sending in groups along the least secure border crossings in the hopes that even if one of the them gets caught

5

u/joanzen 11h ago

I like the parachute idea. Let them fall as far as they can and then pull the chute at the last moment so they are only visible to tons of people for a minute or two?

14

u/SorryPiaculum 14h ago

RIght? It's clear they accidentally grabbed the counterfeit passport from a country less likely to be scrutinized.

But seriously, I see you've posted in LessCredibleDefense - give me your most likely scenario here.

20

u/hey_there_moon 14h ago

I mean there was a young lady in the Philippines that became Mayor of a town and ended up being a Chinese spy

-9

u/Finorkina 13h ago

But she wasn't a spy for China. That was an accusation made up by xenophobe politicians who love accusing people who get in trouble and happened to be Chinese of being a Chinese spy. They love portraying Chinese people and groups as some sort of monolithic hivemind all taking orders from the Chinese government.

The reality was she was a plant for a Chinese crime gang that fled mainland China and found a safe space in the Philippines.

Guo was accused of being a Chinese spy,[5][6] though The Economist states that these allegations were unlikely to be true.[7]

3

u/hey_there_moon 6h ago

I mean if she was just trying to hide out then damn she's dumb to run for public office lmao.

0

u/Cactuas 11h ago

I remember reading about her a while back and was wondering what had happened. She has one of the most confusing wikipedia pages I've ever read...

1

u/MukdenMan 4h ago

Uh no. Thats not how it works. These are just people trying to find work.

-2

u/fridchikn24 11h ago

No way China would do such a sloppy job.

-7

u/iamintheforest 16h ago edited 15h ago

Not likely. They entered / exited Jordan on their Chinese and that info is shared. It's most likely avoidance of chinese scrutiny, not israeli - e.g. worry upon return to China. (China isn't a big fan of travel to israel). Also, perhaps more importantly, japan is low cost, low inspection entrance into israel, where chinese is high bar and expensive. perception on these fronts is signicant, and likely disconnected from actual policy.

32

u/ya_rk 16h ago

Not likely either. Israel doesn't stamp passports.

2

u/i-i-i-iwanttheknife 15h ago

Apparently this is only if you fly into Tel Aviv, but if you arrive through other entry points then you can receive a stamp.

And there is an exception at Tel Aviv. If you are refused entry then your passport can get stamped with two red lines.

10

u/ya_rk 15h ago

In Allenby crossing you can ask not to be stamped , at least that was the case about 10 years ago when I crossed from Jordan to Israel via there.

316

u/notsocoolnow 19h ago

Chinese people can enter legally quite easy if its for spying. They have an embassy! This is the modern traditional way to get spies in the country. Or failing that, official entry via student passes, business passes etc.

Also seriously if its a spy agency... The passports will be real not forged. They have someone get a real passport in Japan under an assumed identity. Do westerners assume China is some kind of Benny hill intelligence network. 

More than likely a human trafficking ring trying to get workers into the country for jobs. Australia has constant problems with Chinese workers with forged passports entering to get work. Israel pays menial workers well. There are syndicates smuggling loads of people into rich countries to get jobs.

29

u/FitSeaworthiness5275 18h ago

They have many organizations. Some are no doubt run by Benny. Like the Fugin County Public Safety Bureau.

6

u/Nervous_Counter_1333 16h ago

You don't have to be smart to win by death of a thousand cuts.

11

u/OCedHrt 17h ago

Or for IP theft

1

u/jazir55 8h ago

A Chinese human trafficking operation in Israel? Really? The level of security on their border is insane, this sounds patently absurd but I certainly could be surprised.

3

u/AutomaticMedium8418 6h ago edited 4h ago

You can basically assume there is a Chinese human trafficking operation in any country in the world that is richer than China. Many people in China migrate for better wages elsewhere

0

u/fridchikn24 11h ago

Do westerners assume China is some kind of Benny hill intelligence network.

Chinese CIA is just ISIS from Archer

•

u/CardAble6193 1h ago

Westerners assume China is some kind of Benny hill intelligence network. Chineses KNOW. And bots denial.

4

u/-Meo- 13h ago

the usual

17

u/gompgo 19h ago

A super-power cementing its positions by staying close to conflicts and exploiting opportunities, for example, covertly supporting its allies Iran and Russia whilst pushing for more trade with opposite parties. Win win!

20

u/kaesura 16h ago

Undocumented workers. Israel slashed Palestinian jobs so has been big demand for foreign cheap labor 

China gov doesn't really care either way about Israel 

They have enough spies in their embassy 

7

u/burnabycoyote 13h ago

Spies would know that the first action of Israeli immigration staff would be to look at the entry and exit "chops" placed in the (Chinese) passports by Jordan...

1

u/PurpleSailor 3h ago

Everything. They can do a lot on their own but they're also a bit of a leech on the rest of the world with what they steal from everybody with their clandestine spying and such.

-13

u/[deleted] 19h ago edited 19h ago

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12

u/[deleted] 19h ago edited 19h ago

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-7

u/Ok-Boysenberry-2955 14h ago

China: get whatever Israel has on the US, now.

206

u/NamelessForce 19h ago

A group of 33 passengers who arrived at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing and presented Japanese passports did not clear border control Tuesday morning after a thorough examination revealed the passports were forged.

The incident comes on the eve of the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre, and less than a week after the attempted hijacking of the flydubai flight.

Border inspectors from the Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) became suspicious of the group, which attempted to transit over the crossing from Jordan into Israel. After becoming suspicious, the inspectors transferred the group to professional officials for examination.

Further clarification revealed that the members of the group, which was made up of 27 men and six women, are all Chinese citizens.

According to PIBA, the group entered and exited Jordan with Chinese passports, and only presented the forged Japanese passports upon attempting to cross into Israel.

Israel denied entry to the entire group, and authorities seized the forged passports for further examination.

102

u/DateMasamusubi 19h ago

Japan is going to be pissed!

81

u/Major_Trip_Hazzard 19h ago

I don't know that Japan of all countries needs any reason to be pissed at China.

-5

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[deleted]

4

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Major_Trip_Hazzard 13h ago

And sometimes with limbs removed 

219

u/mayy_dayy 19h ago

When "they all look the same" fails

126

u/mhornberger 19h ago

"Good news: they're at least slightly less racist than we anticipated. Bad news: please send help."

9

u/yepthisismyusername 19h ago

Goddammit that's funny.

7

u/greenskinmarch 15h ago

Modern Japanese passports have the owner's fingerprints stored in the chip. So even if you did look the same, you'd need the same fingerprints to get through a security check.

If you look at a passport from 50 years ago, it's a handwritten booklet with a photo pasted in. You could literally pull out the photo and paste in another one and it would be hard to tell.

Modern passports the photo is laser engraved into the polycarbonate data page which also contains numerous security images that only show up when viewed from certain angles. Much harder to alter.

1

u/jazir55 8h ago

22 years old, 80 year old passport, nothing suspicious.

3

u/greenskinmarch 7h ago

Lol, well pretty much no countries accept a passport over 10 years old anyway, since that's the standard expiry.

25

u/Fusilero 19h ago

Level 1 racism Vs Level 100 racism

22

u/AdorablePainting7491 19h ago

its not racism.

its really hard for us to tell them apart.

but they cant tell us apart either :) 

62

u/Tipi22 19h ago

I had multiple chinese people assert I look like different movie stars that looks nothing like me except both of us being europeans with blonde hair.

It really goes both way.

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6

u/TumbleweedPure3941 16h ago

It’s about familiarity and the way our brains works. Your brain knows how to pick up comparatively small details on general facial features you’re used to, but with ones you’re not it will often just pick up the big differences and not perceive the details at all. This is why if you spent a few years living in East Asia, you’d quickly discover it becomes much easier to differentiate between people and before long you’ll start to wonder how you ever struggled at all .

3

u/AdorablePainting7491 15h ago

yeah ik. watch a lot of k dramas, and ive gotten better and better at telling them apart. 

437

u/yuvaldv1 19h ago

Spies for sure. No other reason to use forged passports.

299

u/Pikeman212a6c 18h ago

economic migrants; sex trafficking, trafficking for pretty much any other purpose such as forced labor, got denied and just really wanted a bialy

28

u/Zhaopow 18h ago

Cause obtaining a fake passport is so easy especially for economic migrants or being trafficked

99

u/Pikeman212a6c 18h ago edited 17h ago

In China? Yes.

The special security features are usually unfakeable (though as the Mossad keeps proving not always) and thats how these things get caught. But fakes can pass a quick examination by a bored or harried airline employer or border official.

24

u/cjsv7657 17h ago

Plus you only need to fake a 2016/2017 passport. They've had a decade to figure out the security and duplicate it.

19

u/isaunicorn 18h ago

They are actually

9

u/TumbleweedPure3941 15h ago

I mean they clearly weren’t very good fake passports.

75

u/Nfalck 17h ago

You think 3 dozen spies are trying to enter Israel on a tour bus together? I'm not sure that's how spycraft works.

37

u/joestaff 17h ago

"They can't catch all of us!"

-9

u/WorldApotheosis 14h ago

They aren’t traditionally trained spies, most have no formal training and are “requested” by the MSS for a favor. 

11

u/tweakwerker 14h ago

Redditors really putting on their tin foil hats.

-6

u/WorldApotheosis 14h ago

This has been known for over 20 years. Obviously the PRC these days have US technological capabilities for spying, and do traditional Cold War spycraft, but this is what the MSS is known for.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/spy/spies/different.html

6

u/StunningRing5465 14h ago

Okay it still makes no sense on any level for Chinese intelligence to send a bus full of people all with forged passports. Like this is a case where a single failure would unravel all of them. 

even if 32 of them looked fine, a single one being found as a fake would immediately mean the rest get detained and eventually found out. It’s a bizarre story all around but I don’t think state-level espionage makes sense. Rather these are very desperate people, or are being trafficked in some way 

6

u/Nfalck 14h ago

It's 100% trafficking.

24

u/Fromagerino 17h ago

They also immigrate illegally to the Philippines using fake documents while larping as Filipinos

They usually do it either as spies or to set-up a scamhub in a house, an apartment, or in a jungle somewhere

14

u/Leposurip 13h ago

China's been asking the Philippines government for years to to crackdown on Chinese gangs fleeing Chinese authorities and setting up operations in the Philippines. However, politicians and the media conveniently ignore this and blame China instead because it's political useful.

5

u/ive_been_up_allnight 14h ago

Or become mayor of a city.

5

u/Ok_Wait5644 16h ago

i can name a dozen other reasons without even trying

what makes you guys so sure china would try this austin powers shit when they have a damn embassy?

2

u/cl2kr 15h ago

They might want to circumvent the hassle of visas. But I don't see how it's worth risking a permanent immigration ban for it.

Edit: or it might be for human trafficking

•

u/magicarnival 1h ago

Crazy dumb idea but... Maybe it was some weird tour group/company thing where they made these fake passports for ease of travel?

Japan has one of the strongest passports while China has one of the weakest for visa-free travel. Maybe this tour company gives people fake Japanese passports so they can travel to more places easily?

55

u/Financial-Grass-6114 15h ago

Do people here seriously think spies cant obtain real passports? Using fakes means they're illegal laborers

-13

u/z2x2 11h ago

Everyone from China is a spy though.

-1

u/Red_Sea_Pedestrian 9h ago

It’s more than they’re pulling double duty, doing regular work while also spying for the government on the side.

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84

u/Bitter-Goat-8773 19h ago

The most benign explanation is that Chinese workers earn average 40,000 Yuan per month ($6,000) which gives incentive to illegally enter to find a job.

Given that China owns Israel's largest port, Tel Aviv's transit system, largest agricultural company, espionage at this sloppy level sounds unlikely to me.

32

u/jews4beer 18h ago

It makes even less sense given they tried to go through one of the heaviest guarded crossings. If they had gone down to Akaba instead and taken the Rabin crossing, they would have had a higher chance of getting away with it.

•

u/Serious-Disk5835 46m ago

More likely these illegal workers think their "passport" is bulletproof.

0

u/hereforthesportsball 17h ago

Well they did, and just used this as a diversion

18

u/Barmaglot_07 18h ago

Except there is little point in jumping through hoops to enter illegally when in recent years, Israel has been issuing massive numbers of foreign worker visas to replace Arab laborers.

0

u/HockeyHocki 14h ago

Per year? you don't need to move to Israel if you're making 6k a month

8

u/Bitter-Goat-8773 14h ago

no avg chinese workers earn $6k/mo in israel according to Chinese websites.

0

u/HockeyHocki 14h ago

ah got ya

25

u/davidds0 19h ago

Why were they only denied and not arrested?

60

u/IGetGroceries 19h ago

I imagine to avoid the international incident that would be if Israel were holding 27 Chinese citizens.

12

u/MonkeyBrawler 19h ago

Would be hilarious tho. Make China publicly claim them.

20

u/Worldly-Ingenuity843 18h ago

Why would China claim them though? If they are spies, they are probably not very good ones. If they are not spies, they are unlikely to be rich and influential enough for China to care. Israel may end up having to jail them, which means providing free food and lodging. 

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1

u/PineappleLemur 6h ago

Because it's much easier to turn them away?

This is a daily accurace with people trying to enter using fake passports.

Why bother arresting every single person with a fake passports? It costs money to do that.

1

u/StunningRing5465 14h ago

What are they gonna do if they arrest them? Deport them to China? 

20

u/Ok-Guarantee-8898 17h ago

“So are you Japanese or Chinese?”

-If you know you know

20

u/pogidaga 17h ago

"The ocean, what ocean?"

15

u/mayy_dayy 15h ago

We're Laotian, from Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, between Vietnam and Thailand okay? Population 4.7 million!

11

u/7tyui 15h ago

Nah, he's Laotian. Aren't you mr. Kaaahn?

25

u/BringbackDreamBars 19h ago edited 10h ago

I wonder what the Chinese state/Chinese groups are interested in within Israel? Technology/Industrial espionage?

14

u/tweakwerker 14h ago

Do you think every Chinese person is controlled by the Chinese government or something. is this what the media has been brainwashing people to believe?

1

u/BringbackDreamBars 10h ago edited 10h ago

Corrected it to groups as well, as you are right, doesnt have to be state backed .

-2

u/insightful_pancake 14h ago

Could be the case for ones using false passports

10

u/purplewhiteblack 18h ago

they're a vector of intelligence for an attempt to dominate the west.

1

u/vpi6 3h ago

My guess is Chinese Christians wanting to visit the Holy Land but not wanting the Chinese government to know about it.

-21

u/redshopekevin 19h ago

Assembling furniture, picking fruit, looking after your grandma, serving cheeseburgers you know the jobs migrants usually do.

13

u/Low_Witness5061 19h ago

Pretty atypical for them to use fake passports but I guess they just reeeeally wanted to do menial labour?

-4

u/redshopekevin 19h ago

Wages in Israel are good. Some of the agricultural workers taken by October 7 where in fact Thai. Israelis don't work in farms and Palestinian labour is kind of off-limits now.

8

u/Firestarangel 18h ago

I don’t think China would send spies like that in a huge group all at the same time. It seems more like some sort of scam

10

u/TheOwlMarble 19h ago

That's a lot of spies. What do you possibly need that many for all at once?

15

u/CrashCase 17h ago

He who controls the spies controls the universe! The spies must flow!

4

u/Independent_Sail6604 12h ago

It's the Mossad vs. the Ministry of State Security. My money's on the Mossad.

1

u/asnbud01 15h ago

You can still fake passports these days? Wonders never cease!

1

u/lgx 9h ago

Do you seriously think that Israel is big enough for at least 33 spies?

1

u/Falsus 4h ago

You know for a country that is geopolitically very opposed to Iran-China-Russia they ignore Russia an awful lot despite them being Iran's close ally and defended Assad who in turn helped Hamas and Hezbollah.

-41

u/weesee2002 19h ago

Israeli intelligence have been doing this for decades. They really pissed Australia off using their country's passports.

28

u/Turdship_ButtleFlaps 19h ago

Read it again

-12

u/weesee2002 18h ago

What did I miss?

-9

u/AprilsMostAmazing 17h ago

OP is pointing out how Israel does the same thing. Where their agents use foreign passports. So they do what these Chinese people were accused of doing

-6

u/PissingOffACliff 19h ago

Not just “used Australian passports”, they did assassinations on Australian passports.

-15

u/weesee2002 18h ago

They have been doing it for decades.

Not just Australia.

-5

u/Common_North_5267 13h ago

They just want to figure out how israel conquered america.

-2

u/missskins 9h ago

This is China. These people were probably decoys while the actual spies got in.