ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on forensics is to familiarize the reader with how investigators and the forensic scientist can, and should, work together in the search for truth. Each component of the document has evidentiary value that can provide the investigator with significant common-source information but only after a forensic analysis and linking of those common characteristics. A forensic analysis of equipment can provide evidence to establish what equipment was used in the fabrication of specific cards. Forensic ink analysis is both a nondestructive and semi-destructive examination made to determine the physical/chemical profile of the ink. The forensic examiner provides assistance to the investigator and the investigation in many different ways. The chapter describes how a case should be submitted to the Questioned Document Laboratory by an investigator. In the future, plastic card documents will be a major component of the Forensic Document Examiner’s work.
