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Russia’s FSB nabs group making fake documents for Islamic State fighters

© Militant photo via AP, File

MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it has curbed the activity of an international criminal group that falsified documents for Russians who went to fight alongside the Islamic State terrorist group.

Fourteen suspected members of the group were caught red-handed in an operation in the Moscow region following a tip-off that an illegal business had been organized to "legalize persons involved in terrorist activity."

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Organizers and participants of the group "are suspected of making fake documents of citizens of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) for persons who illegally go to Syria to take part in combat actions alongside the ISIL (IS) international terrorist organization," the security service said.

The group also made fake documents for illegal migrants and "gunmen sent to Russia by ISIL leaders to carry out terrorist and extremism-related crimes."

"During the searches, a great number of fake documents, blanks, prints, stamps, equipment used to make them were found as well as extremist literature," the FSB said. The officers also uncovered printing houses, laboratories and a scheme for selling fake documents.

A search operation continues to bring to justice persons who had obtained the fake documents.

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