ATHENS — An NBC News investigation has uncovered that a Greece-based document forger — who sold American passports to a U.S. agent after being told they were meant for ISIS — will not be extradited to America anytime soon, since he was not promptly arrested despite a nine-month-long investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaking to NBC News from inside a Greek prison, Haytham Koubash denied that he forged the passports himself but acknowledged facilitating the sale.
“It’s my work,” he said, “I don’t ask anybody for who or what they want to do with the passports.”
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For U.S. authorities, it all began in October 2014 when, according to a federal agent’s sworn affidavit, DHS investigators received a tip from two informants who claimed that the 46-year-old Syrian, Koubash, was selling doctored American and European passports in Athens.
During recorded telephone conversations with the informants, the agent says in the affidavit, Koubash agreed to sell. A passport — later proved to be a legitimate U.S. passport reported stolen in Athens a few weeks earlier — was delivered to the agents for $5000 by mid-December 2014.
It was time to up the ante: in subsequent calls the agents had the informants tell Koubash they need more passports, this time for ISIS.
“Yes, yes,” Koubash agreed, according to the affidavit. “Give him my number,” he said referring to the agent, who he was made to believe was an ISIS intermediary.
The meeting for a face-to-face exchange took place in Athens in May 2015. The agent posing as the ISIS intermediary was now assisted by Greece’s Financial and Economic Unit and was recording video.
In stills of that video obtained by NBC News and not previously published, Koubash can be seen meeting a man inside a coffee shop and standing at one of Greece’s most public parks.
During the meeting, according to the same affidavit, a U.S. agent provided four passport photographs of what he explained to be members of ISIS and a deposit of 5000 euros (about $5,500). Koubash asked for some time.
“About one week to five days,” Koubash explained to NBC News, is the time needed in Athens to acquire a stolen U.S. passport and have its photo altered.
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He also said U.S. passports are on the lower end of the market with their price ranging from 250 to 350 euros, as they are not for everyone: A perspective buyer needs to have a good American accent to get away with them.
Five days later, Koubash met the agent again, this time in front of Greece’s parliament. The surveillance stills obtained by NBC News show him wearing a red shirt while, according to court documents, he delivered four doctored U.S. passports.








