Forensic Examination of Artificially Aged Document by Non-Destructive Technique.

Abstract

Criminals adopted new techniques of ageing the document by treating it with different substances that disguised it to laymen as a naturally aged document. Forensic document examiners need to pay special attention to such artificially aged documents during laboratorial examination. In this paper, using VSC 6000-HS and FTIR-ATR, we discussed the non-destructive approach to the examination of artificially aged documents, which are treated with some chemical substances to accelerate the ageing process of the documents. The FTIR-ATR spectrum of such an artificially treated document shows the unique peak of chemicals or substances that were used to accelerate the age of the document. L*a*b* colour values obtained in VSC 6000-HS clearly show the degree of yellowness (ageing) in some artificially aged documents, which strongly indicate the sign of forgery. Further, the chemometric analysis also discriminates the artificially aged document treated with different substances.