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Holograms, engravings and just the right polycarbonate make a perfect driver’s license from anywhere you want. The cards are bedeviling bouncers.
Feb. 13, 2025Updated 8:23 a.m. ET
The bar on Avenue A was already packed when a New York University junior joined the door line on a recent Friday night in the East Village.
Outside, a stern bouncer scrutinized each person’s driver’s license to keep out underage drinkers like this 20-year-old. Inside, patrons piled their coats onto stools, clamored for drinks, then danced in tight scrums as they held their cups protectively aloft.
The junior stepped up to the bouncer with confidence and handed over a convincing-looking license.
Scoring a fake ID has been a rite of passage for generations of underage New Yorkers eager to join the bar scene. Often this meant handing over cash for some laminated product slapped together by amateurs in a dorm room or head shop.
But constant upgrades to license designs mean that shoddy fakes no longer cut it, and a new breed of counterfeiters is serving the underage drinking market. Their products, which can reap millions for them, include holograms, bar codes and laser engraving that can fool the electronic scanners bar owners now deploy.
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Counterfeiters set up websites that list convincing replicas by state and take payment in cryptocurrency. The dead-on fakes are created with sophisticated equipment and materials that sellers promise will pass muster with eagle-eyed staffers at bars, not to mention marijuana dispensaries.
