The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia

by Tim Tzouliadis

“American passports are stolen at every opportunity, as they can be sold to the Soviet government at a good price. Passports thus obtained by confiscation or theft are used for fraudulent entry of communists into the United States. The photograph is removed and a photograph of the communist user is substituted, who enters the United States under the name of the former owner. Counterfeit passports have also been used for the same purpose to some extent, but the genuine passport, altered as described, is greatly preferred.”4 Only a hopeless idealist—or the most blundering detective—could have failed to deduce that once an American passport was stolen and reused, the true holder of that passport would become a rather inconvenient witness to an inelegant identity fraud.