Fake fingerprints let woman slip through customs

by Sean McLachlan on

A Chinese woman who had been deported from Japan for overstaying her visa wanted to get back in so badly that she had plastic surgery to change her fingerprints. Japanese customs officials never discovered Lin Rong, 27, was back in the country until she was arrested on a different charge and her true identity revealed.

When police arrested Ms. Lin last month for allegedly faking a marriage to a Japanese man, presumably to guarantee her stay in Japan, they noticed she had odd scars on her thumbs and index fingers. Investigators said she confessed to having paid $15,000 to have her fingerprints switched by removing the skin of her fingertips and grafting it back on the opposite hand.

She’s now being charged for the very new crime of biometric fraud. Japan is one of many countries to use a biometric recognition system to check fingerprints, and so it’s inevitable that something like this would happen sooner or later. In fact, it’s not even the first time. Last year a South Korean woman managed to fool the machines by putting a special tape on her fingers.

The United States uses a biometric recognition system too. There’s no word on what expensive piece of hardware is going to be needed to replace what’s already become a beatable system.

The Longest Climb: from the Dead Sea to the summit of Everest

by Kraig Becker on

Many adventurers are driven to go to extremes. They visit remote places and seem to revel in the challenge and suffering that goes along with those expeditions. Back in 2006, a team of climbers from the U.K. took that philosophy to new limits, when they set out on an expedition that began at the Dead Sea and ended on the summit of Everest.

The team began their adventure at 1385 feet below sea level on the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan, where they climbed aboard their bikes and proceeded to ride all the way Everest Base Camp on the Tibetan side of the mountain. The journey took more than six months to complete, and they faced about every type of weather imaginable along the way.

Upon reaching Everest, their challenges were just beginning of course. They still had to face the tallest mountain on the planet, and all of the difficulties that that entails. In the end, they reached the summit, located at 29,029 feet, having chalked up 30,414 feet of elevation gain along the way.

To get a taste of their journey, check out the video below, as the team goes from the lowest point on Earth to the highest, completely under their own power.

Photo of the Day (11.28.2009)

by Brenda Yun on


Yesterday, I passed by several businesses that were setting up their holiday lights and decorations. I chose this shot as a lovely reminder of the beauty of city lights no matter what time of year it is. There’s something about the haze of a big city in particular that makes for a great photograph. The light lingers in the air and makes the city vibrantly alive.

Today’s photo comes to us from toffiloff, who has some amazing high-def shots worth browsing of Holland, his home country, or other places like China or Switzerland. If you have some great travel shots you’d like to share, be sure to upload them to the Gadling pool on Flickr. We might just pick one as our Photo of the Day!

Gadlinks for Friday 11.20.09

by Brenda Yun on

We’re less than a week away from Thanksgiving (gasp!). One thing I’m thankful for: Thanksgiving doesn’t involve giving gifts. I still have another month to thinking about gifts (thank God!). Here are some other things to be thankful for.

‘Til Monday, have a great weekend!

More Gadlinks HERE.

Visitors from outside the U.S. down 9 percent, spending a lot less

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Visits from outside the United States continued their slide in August. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that 5.4 million people visited the United States from other countries in August this year. Unfortunately, that’s a drop of 9 percent from August 2008. And, the smaller number of people is spending less money when it comes here. In August 2009, international visitors spent $10 billion. This sounds like a lot, but it’s off almost 21 percent from last year. For the first eight months of this year, spending by foreign visitors reached $79.5 billion, down 17 percent year-over-year. The fact that the year-to-date decline isn’t as bad as what we saw in August suggests that the situation has been worsening.

Trends in visits from Canada and Mexico are consistent with the global trend. Canadian visits fell 6 percent in August and are off 8 percent for the year through August. Meanwhile, visits from Mexico surged in August, gaining 23 percent, with land arrivals up 37 percent and air arrivals down 7 percent. This wasn’t enough to change the situation for the year, however. For the first eight months of 2009, visits from Mexico fell six percent relative to the same period in 2008.

Visits from overseas (not including Mexico and Canada) were off 6 percent in August and 9 percent for the year. Of the top 20 countries sending visitors to the United States, 11 sustained decreases for the month of August, with five of these declines hitting double-digit levels. Along with Mexico, China, Brazil and the Bahamas posted double-digit increases. Year-to-date, 17 of the top 20 countries showed declines in visitation to the United States, eight of them reaching double-digit levels.

Europe certainly isn’t sending as many visitors to the United States as it once did. For August, visits are off 11 percent — the same rate posted for 2009 so far. The United Kingdom‘s visits to the United States were down 13 percent in August, which is disproportionately powerful, given that the United Kingdom accounts for 34 percent of all Western European arrivals in the United States. Through August, visits to the United States from the United Kingdom were off 16 percent, with Germany down 6 percent and France down 3 percent.

The trend is improving in Japan. While visits so far this year were down 16 percent by August, the month of august itself showed an improvement, with visits from Japan down only 8 percent. Japan accounts for nearly half of all Asian visitors to the United States. Year-to-date, visits from South Korea and India fell 11 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

It’s clear that travel to the United States continues to suffer from the effects of the worldwide recession, particularly since, the Department of Commerce says, business travel is falling faster than leisure travel this year.

[Chart courtesy of the U.S. Department of Commerce]