Ura Hello Work c.18 – forger
What is Shinya Kusaka’s URA HELLO WORK?
Where can I buy it?
18 – FORGERY CREATOR (偽造クリエイター： GIZOU KURIEITAA)
RISK: ＊＊＊＊＊
SALARY: ＊＊＊＊
HARD LABOR:＊＊＊＊
ILLEGALITY: ＊＊＊＊＊
The people I’ve interviewed until now fall into two groups: those who make a living off of their physical efforts (tuna fisherman, nuclear reactor cleanup) and those who make a living like an artisan or craftsman (marijuana cultivator, locksmith, etc.). This time, I’m interviewing a forger – definitely on the top rank of artisinal ‘ura work.’
THERE’S NOTHING IN THE WORLD THAT CAN’T BE DUPLICATED
“First of all, you’ve been told that some documents are too hard to copy. Forget that. It’s nonsense. Think about it like this : every paper is made by humans, so it can be re-made by other humans! I don’t gizou (偽造: counterfeit) yen bills or stock certificates, but not because they’re too hard – it’s only because the effort and startup expenses are too bothersome.”
So declares Mr. Islefield (32, not his real name), a ‘gizou creator.’ Then he mutters to himself, “Actually those would be really hard to do.” It’s this skittishness, this nervousness that gives him a different first impression from most of the guys I interview. Islefield doesn’t do anything but gizou – even the sales of his creations are handled by his partner. I wasn’t able to meet the partner, but Mr. Islefield assures me that he’s a really aggressive salesman! Looking at Islefield, I can understand why he needs a partner for the ‘people-skills’ part of his business: he’s barely able to hold a conversation.
I ask Mr. islefield what items are popular in his line of work. He says houkenshou （保険証: insurance ID） cards. (ed. note: In Japan, insurance cards are used as I.D. cards, since most people don’t have drivers’ licences)
“Anyone can fake a houkenshou – All you need is a high-quality scanner and a PC. Of course, the finishing touches will show the difference between the pro and amateur. Then, you get the correct kind of paper to print on, and you’re done. And they sell that paper at any stationary store! Really, who decided that such an easily-copied thing should be the main form of ID? It’s strange! If you have this houkenshou, you – in theory – have yourself a fake identity: you can open a false bank account! That sounds handy, but in practice, almost no-one takes them seriously as ID anymore. Only really low-level yamikin (やみ金：loan-sharks) will loan you money if you’re your only ID is a paper houkenshou.”
Tha’ts why recently the government has decided to switch from paper houkenshou to plastic, credit-card-lookin’ cards.
“Compared to the paper ones, it takes a lot of painstaking effort to clone the plastic houkenshou. But, since they switched to plastic specifically to shut guys like me out of business, why didn’t they go the extra mile and put a face-photo on there? It seems like they’re not thinking straight. A photo-ID. That would be a more exciting challenge for me!”
So, Mr. Islefield is currently spending all his energy trying to duplicate the new plastic houkenshou. He says within three months of the REAL plastic cards’ debut, the forgeries will also be on the market: people know how easy the paper cards are to fake- many places don’t take them as IDs. But everyone assumes the new plastic cards will be un-breakable, so they DON’T take precautions with those. Meaning that users will be able to get away with a lot more. And that means that the first forger to market counterfeit plastic IDs will make a killing!
I was not allowed to see Mr. Islefield’s work-space, but he told me the general process: First you get the materials, then you process them to make a plastic card. Then you print the letters on the card. Then you laminate it with transparent plastic. You can buy such a laminator at Tokyuu Hands (the equivalent of Target). There’s really nothing to it, he says. Talking to him, you get the feeling that he doesn’t regard what he’s doing as a ‘hard’ crime like mugging or larceny. He’s more like a big kid playing with toys.
I COULDN’T FORGIVE HOW SIMPLE THE TELEPHONE CARDS WERE
(ed. note: 1990s Japanese ‘telephone cards’ were not magnetic or electronic: they operated on a hole-punch system: you bought one with minutes on it, and physically stuck it inside the telephone slot. Every 5 minutes, the phone would punch a hole in the card. When the card was full of holes, your card was done.)
The first time he tried to gizou something was ten years ago, during the big ‘phone card’ fad. At that time, he was in college, and became quickly obsessed with hacking the cards. The technique was simple: fill up the holes in the cards with tiny wedges of aluminum foil. Even though it worked, it was clearly a hack, and not a genuine forgery: you could tell it had been tampered with. Upon realizing the difference, Islefield became ashamed at his poor workmanship and resolved to become a true gizou kurieitaa.
“I wanted to make something perfect! That was the start of my ‘gizou mania.’ But it was all for fun – I had no idea I could make a living at it. I started forging insurance ID cards – I guess you could call that my ‘debut’ in the world of grown-up counterfeits. I didn’t have a nice scanner or sophisticated software like today – I just studied gizou a lot and tried really hard, and eventually succeeded in producing something that couldn’t be told apart from the real deal. I guess that’s why I’m so passionate about being the first to clone the new plastic IDs!
“I didn’t want to clone someone else’s ID cards for money – I only wanted to get skills for the sake of skills. So I used my family’s cards to practice on! Honestly I didn’t really think of it as a crime. One day I showed the card to my friend. He said, ‘I want one! You should do this for a living!’ and that’s when I started thinking about it.”
This friend is not working with Islefield nowadays, but they’re in the same general line of work:
“He never went to school. He was always going to the dangerous spots. Now he’s an underworld guy. Anyway, thanks to him, I realized that my hobby was criminal. But I couldn’t stop – I had to find out if my creations would actually work in the real world. So when my friend asked me to make him an ID, I did it!
“After that, I got more and more requests – houkenshou and also student IDs. I have never done a passport, but I’d like to try one day. Overcoming such a challenge would be the pinnacle of my career! The more complex it is, the more I enjoy grappling with it. Stuff like telephone cards or houkenshou, anyone can do those! I really like making things with photos embedded in them – drivers’ licenses and things of that level. If some punk beginner tried to do a drivers’ license, you’d take one look at it and be like ORLY? But I can do it, so that makes me feel good.”
He uses Adobe Illustrator to make the drivers’ licenses. Working from a model, he reconstructs each detail in the software. Then he pops in images that he’s scanned. Scanning is useful because the pictures don’t degrade no matter how many times you copy or process them. He pays special attention to the kerning of the letters, and the license number. (You can’t just pick random digits – There’s information hidden in the license number. Certain patterns of numbers mean things. When you use your ID card at a machine, the machine checks the numbers, and you don’t want to tell it the wrong stuff). The work is very meticulous. He allowed me to inspect some of his drivers’ licenses. Aside from the words being slightly blurry, it looked and felt real. “One of these days, I’m going to clone the font that they use – then I won’t have to bother Photoshopping the existing letters,” he says. “Then my cards will be 100% perfect!”
“The people who buy my creations usually are crooks. They won’t tell me what they want ‘em for! But recently, there’s been an increase in ‘regular citizens’ also buying fake IDs: mostly drivers’ licenses and college IDs. They tell me they’re regular people who want the freedom to pretend to be someone else. Go out drinking with people and introduce yourself as Mr. Smith, make up a fake story, have some fun. Or if you couldn’t get into a certain college, go anyway! Pretend to have the life you want. Like you ever see on TV where someone is obsessed with policemen? And the guy will ride the train in full (stolen) police uniform – and get arrested? Well, I think my customers aren’t that nuts, but definitely they remind me of those fake-police-maniacs. In this day and age, a lot of people want a second identity. It’s just a card, but it gives them a feeling of freedom, like they can do anything. These are strange times we’re living in!”
Incidentally, the market price of a forged drivers’ license is around $1,000. A small price for turning into another person, I think! Of course there’s always people advertising phoney IDs on the net, but those items aren’t ‘real’ gizou, so to speak. I’ve heard of people who sent their money to the internet address, ordering a fake ID, and in the mail they get . . .a Morning Musume fan club card!
FAKE BANK ACCOUNTS AND FORGED TICKETS.
“I don’t do tobashi keitai and kakuu kouza (untraceable cellphones and bank accounts). Not my job. You have to find people at the bank , at the phone company, get them to cooperate – either by trickery or bribery. I prefer to work alone. That’s why I call myself a “gizou creator” – a craftsman, not a con-man.”
Mr. Islefield’s friend, however, is doing fake bank accounts. I ask him to tell me about it, and he looks crestfallen. He answers without any of the feverish passion he uses when describing his own techniques.
“Well, (sigh), you can use one of my fake IDs to open an untraceable account, or to sign up for a cellphone contract. But it’s simpler to just pay a homeless or a junior-high student for their ID card and use that. In any case, my friend charges $30 to set up a fake bank account, and $50 to get an untraceable cellphone- but of course that’s just for his labor, it doesn’t include the fake IDs.”
These days, what is your most profitable commodity? What do you get asked for the most?
“Concert tickets! Famous idol-singers’ concerts. . . compared to drivers’ licenses they’re simple as hell to clone, but expensive as hell to buy. People scalp them on online auctions for $400, $500 a pop. I don’t like doing that work, though. It’s so easy, anyone could do it. They post pictures of the tickets on the auction sites – you don’t have to be Michaelangelo to duplicate a damn .jpg and print it. People tell me I should clone a lot of tickets and sell them to crooked ticket-shops. But frankly, I have no interest in idol-singers. I don’t have the passion to sit there all day and make tickets for these kinds of events! Oh, also pet pedigrees! For certain breeds of dogs, the pedigree can earn me a ridiculous amount of money. There’s a few corrupt pet-shops that ask me for pedigrees, like, all the time! I’m thinking of quitting that racket, too! Too much bother over a dog.”
Once again, Mr. Islefield’s tone of voice is declining to a whisper. The idea of forging things which are ‘too easy’ seems to be like a ghost which is haunting his whole career. He feels that certain items are beneath him.
After the interview is over, I went home and took all my various cards and IDs and spread them out on the table. Try as I might, I could not be certain they were real! What is ‘real’, when it comes to plastic cards? To think that our society puts so much trust in them – we dedicate our entire identities to these little things. I think we’re all living in Kafka’s novel ‘The Castle.’
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Another awesome one. I like this guy.