Senators Complain About Fake Licenses From China [AUDIO]

We first told you about this a few weeks ago: phony driver's licenses selling on the web that use technology to faithfully reproduce the real McCoy and it has Homeland Security Officials alarmed. Now, Washington's starting to take notice.

A lot of these fakes are sold out of China and they carry the same holograms and other security identifiers as the real thing. Now, four U.S. Senators have written to the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., asking for help.

In a letter to Ambassador Zhang Yesui addressed to the Embassy of the People's republic of China in the United States of America, Senators Mark Kirk, Richard Durbin, Charles Grassley and Tom Harkin wrote, "A state identification document, including driver's licenses, is one of the most important pieces of identification in the United States. Driver's licenses are used for a whole host of purposes, including opening a bank account, obtaining a United States Passport, boarding an airplane and verifying identity for employment. Much of our daily life depends on the validity of these documents and they serve an important purpose in authenticating a person's identity. In 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, IL seized over 1,700 counterfeit driver's licenses."

Brian Zimmer, President of the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License, says although this story has been widely publicized in American media, he says it is very likely that the Chinese Ambassador is unaware that there are companies in China who are using the internet to sell fake ID's here in the states.

Zimmer also says that there needs to be much stiffer penalties for anyone caught with one of these fakes. He says New York and Florida have tough laws, but the crackdown needs to continue in other states.