David Shepherd, director of security for The Venetian, testifies Wednesday about technology used by the private sector to detect false documents during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Photo by The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON -- Federal agents carrying false identification were able to enter the United States through nine border checkpoints this year, in part because customs officers are not issued the same kind of card readers that can pick out fake IDs in Las Vegas casinos, witnesses told a Senate committee Wednesday.

Some Las Vegas resorts use the technology to verify the ages and identities of tourists and gamblers, Venetian security director David Shepherd said.

The same fake driver's license a teen uses to gamble or enter a nightclub could allow criminals to get credit fraudulently or allow a terrorist to enter the country, Shepherd, a former FBI agent, told the Senate Finance Committee.

"Number one, we have to protect the guests," Shepherd said afterward.

"We need to do more to help protect our businesses, and that's why we keep looking at technology to do it."

Federal investigators used forged driver's licenses and birth certificates to enter the country at nine border crossings in Arizona, California, Texas, Idaho, Michigan, New York and Washington state, an official from the Government Accountability Office told senators.

The undercover agents were waved through all of the borders, said Gregory Kutz, GAO director of forensic audits and special investigations.

Customs and Border Patrol "inspectors clearly do not have the tools available to identify counterfeit documents," Kutz said.

"From a security standpoint, the current system will always be vulnerable to individuals entering the United States using counterfeit documents."

Shepherd argued that Customs agents should use the same card readers used by casinos to spot fake identification cards.

"You can use some of these systems now. We can go through 1,100 (types of) documents now," Shepherd said. "You don't have to wait. You can't turn around and say, 'We can't do it.' We have to protect people now."

Agents at border checkpoints routinely are issued a magnifying device, a book describing commonly issued identification and a flashlight or black light, representatives of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Patrol said.

"I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect people at the border with the current technology they have to be able to identify counterfeit driver's licenses and birth certificates. There are too many variations," Kutz said.

Customs agents cannot possibly memorize all the watermarks, holograms and other authenticating features of the hundreds of kinds of identification they are currently presented with by people crossing borders, said Jayson Ahern, an assistant commissioner at Customs and Border Patrol.

"Until we have a standardized document that has biometric security features and also has machine-readable capabilities, we will have this same type of a hearing periodically," Ahern said.

GAO investigators have attempted to enter the country with fake documents 45 times since 2002. They have been caught only three times.

In 2005, Customs agents processed more than 431 million pedestrian entries and 121 million privately owned vehicles, Ahern said. Agents arrested 84,000 individuals trying to cross the border by claiming citizenship or using fake IDs, he said.

Officials from two companies that produce identification cards and card readers said their products could tell whether a card was fake.

Representatives from AssureTec Systems demonstrated one of the company's card scanners, which uses multiple light scans to verify different authenticating watermarks and holograms. Within seconds, it identified the GAO investigator's fake ID.

AssureTec has sold the technology to Chile, Thailand and Singapore, said Bruce Reeves, the company's chief executive. It also is also conducting a pilot with a U.S. bank on a scanner that reads financial documents. Another pilot project is at an American embassy, where AssureTec's scanners have been used to check the applications of 25,000 to 30,000 visa applications, Reeves said.

Reeves estimated that equipping the country's 502 land border lanes with a basic system would cost about $2 million, with less than $400,000 in annual maintenance.

That estimated cost is less than 1 percent of the Department of Homeland Security's $35 billion budget, noted the committee's chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.