An immigration officer at Gatwick has been arrested on suspicion of selling fake passports.
Lucy Denyer, 21, is alleged to have offered passports for £500 to reporters claiming to be illegal immigrants and told them she could get more.
She has been suspended from her job at the airport and was arrested early today by the Metropolitan Police after reports appeared in a national newspaper.
She allegedly handed over a passport taken from a store of confiscated documents at the airport's North Terminal, unaware she was being filmed by undercover reporters.
It is said she believed it was for a Romanian called Piotr who had hidden in the back of a lorry to enter the UK at Dover.
But he was actually a reporter and the meeting in a Croydon pub had been arranged by one of his colleagues.
Ms Denyer allegedly handed over a passport number 034705825 in the name of James Smallwood, born in Northampton on February 6, 1979.
It was seized at Gatwick in September 2001 from suspected drug smugglers and used in evidence at a Croydon Crown Court trial.
Ms Denyer, an immigration officer for three years, allegedly passed the passport under the table and told the reporter: "You take the photo out the top and slide yours in.
"You need to be very, very careful with it. Do it very slowly.
"It is better to have your own photo in it rather than to get someone like you. Normally it would cost you £1,000, so it is cheap.
"You have got to remember this is my job at risk and this is my life at risk for you, so it's £500. It is a very good price, trust me.
"This will be my second like this but I've done visas before. The visas are easier because it is something I can just put a stamp on.
"We have got two drawers full of British passports - about 70."
A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said: "She was arrested at an address in Surrey at 2am on May 12 and remains at a south London police station."
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "She has been suspended and this is being investigated."
BAA Gatwick declined to comment. Calls to Ms Denyer's family home in Lingfield, Surrey, went unanswered.
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