Above the bar at Wet Willy's hang hundreds of counterfeit driver's licenses hailing from New Jersey to Florida.

The collage of bemused mugs constitutes a lineup of underage barflies, nabbed at the door of this popular riverfront lounge and sent skulking back out into the night. For the bouncers, busting underage drinkers is almost a certain satisfaction: Here at Wet Willy's, they average about eight fake IDs a weekend.

Such trophies point to a sober reality on the nightclub scene from Portsmouth, N.H., to Atlanta: Fifteen years after states began raising the drinking age to 21, the clamor for fake IDs has only increased.

New hologram and encoding technologies invented to curb the fake-ID market have, in fact, backfired. Cheap Internet templates, and high-quality printers and card-pressing machines, have led to a steep rise in fake-ID websites and ID "chop shops." That has police and motor vehicle departments across the country - to say nothing of the FBI - scrambling to thin the ranks of college students, illegal immigrants, and outright thieves sporting wallets full of high-quality fake identification. Â

While the FBI worries more about identity theft and credit-card fraud, the explosion in the fake-ID market is a bold warning about a world where false identities are becoming easy to create. And with theft and forgery becoming more anonymous via the Web, the trend is only becoming more pervasive.

"It's just getting easier and easier to get a fake ID," says Nathan Grassi, a bartender at Savannah's Club One.

Of the various forms of identity theft or forgery, fake IDs used for procuring adult drinks are by far the most popular - and ubiquitous. While it's a relatively victimless crime - the bars, after all, get paid - it's indicative of a deeper trend affecting everyone from banks to retail stores.

In four separate stings during spring break in Florida this year, police netted more than 10,000 fake IDs and arrested 350 minors. By that estimate, police say there are likely millions of fake IDs in circulation throughout the country today. Indeed, some estimate that fully half of all highschoolers today carry some sort of forged ID.

In North Carolina's Chatham County, one well-known forger travels through the countryside in a nondescript van, churning out fake green cards out of the back. Technology has made his process easier, cheaper, and faster: Today, an "identity package" - green card, Social Security card, and driver's license - can cost as little as $100, down from $300 a few years ago.

Last month, 50,000 blank driver's licenses were stolen from a DMV office in Kerner, La. In Atlanta, police have tried to shut down shops selling realistic-looking Georgia IDs marked on the back as "souvenir IDs" - in easily removable script. Among the most popular to forge, Georgia IDs are making their way to lounges as far north as Boston. Meanwhile, banks confirm a similar rise in identity-related thefts: In 1997, banks reported 44 identity thefts; in 2000, that number rose to 617.

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