Why check the passport of a natural person-contractor?

By verifying a natural person's passport before starting business cooperation, you reduce the risks before signing documents.

Often, fly-by-night companies are established using false documents. For instance, a scan of the nominee director's passport can be falsified by replacing the photo and adding a "copy is true" stamp on behalf of a notary office. A nominee director is a natural person who is formally listed as the head of the company for a certain fee.

This is why it is crucial to check the passport of the CEO in the database of invalid Russian passports. There are certain situations in which a person, unknowingly, may become a nominee director:

• Lost passport. Someone found a lost passport and with an outward resemblance to its real owner decided to open a legal entity in its name. It is not the responsibility of the tax service to check the authenticity of identity documents.
• Document fraud. Suppose that you sent the bank a copy of your passport by email to apply for a loan. Fraudsters took possession of it and used it to make a fake passport, which they later used to set up a company.

If the passport is valid, pay attention to cases where the director's city of residence is not the same as the city where the company is registered, and when the director's age suggests they are a student or have already retired. These factors may also indicate the director's nominal role in the company.

If the passport is invalid, the documents signed by the director or co-owner of the company may become invalid.

How do I check a passport?

In the side menu in the "Other Checks" tab you can do a quick one-click verification. After entering the data of the document to be checked, Seldon.Basis automatically gives information on the presence or absence of the passport in the list of invalid documents according to the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.