Chinese twins arrested for exchanging passports dozens of times to travel

Authorities say ‘using your DNA to your advantage’ is illegal

Police in China have arrested a pair of twin sisters for allegedly swapping their passports to travel abroad at least 30 times.

Local police said that the Zhou sisters who are from Harbin city are being investigated, reported Insider citing Harbin Daily.

One of the sisters, who has been given the pseudonym Hong by authorities, wanted to travel to Japan to be with her husband.

Her visa application, however, had been denied.

She then borrowed her twin sister Wei’s (also a pseudonym given by authorities) passport for the trip.

She also used her twin’s passport to travel between China, Japan, and Russia at least 30 times, the police said.

Ms Wei on the other hand used her sister’s passport to travel to Thailand at least four times.

Police did not disclose details about the sister’s identity and age, reported the South China Morning Post.

Police said the sisters’ overseas travel history was discovered at the beginning of this year and they were ordered to return to China in late May.

Wang Xiaodong, a local police officer from the immigration management department, said that it was illegal to “take advantage of your DNA” to travel.

“You can inquire with immigration authorities about your passport issues, but you cannot travel abroad using someone else’s passport,” he was quoted as saying.

The case has been widely discussed on Chinese social media, reported Insider.

The hashtag “twins exchanged identities and went abroad more than 30 times” has got more than 360 million views on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.

The incident has also raised questions about security measures in the country.

The government’s facial recognition technology was capable of scanning the faces of citizens in just one second, according to a 2018 report by Chinese state media People’s Daily.

Border control measures have also been tightened during the Covid pandemic.