Face of mistaken ID

Customs mixes up fliers’ travel docs

A Manhattan man’s effort to ease his way through US Customs crossed the border into a bureaucratic nightmare.

Lee Fine (right), a 38-year-old software salesman from Chelsea, was thrilled to obtain a Global Entry pass, which he hoped would let him skip Customs lines when he and his girlfriend returned from a vacation in Mexico.

But there was a big glitch: The “Lee Fine” on the plastic card is a bespectacled Asian man with Korean citizenship.

“It’s kind of frightening that that mistake could be made so easily. They don’t check their work,” said Fine, who is white and an American citizen.

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who’s critical of lax border security, told The Post, “We have multiple examples of agencies where the security is not operating efficiently.

“Global Entry does allow people certain accesses, and if it’s flawed, it’s a problem.”

Travelers with Global Entry cards returning to the US can go to an airport kiosk, present their passport and place their hand on a scanner to verify their fingerprints. If accepted, they are allowed to leave the area and collect their baggage.

Before travelers are issued the card, they must undergo what US Customs and Border Protection calls “a rigorous background check and in-person interview.”

Everyone who applies for the card is supposed to be fingerprinted — but Fine never got to the finger-printing stage.

The mix-up with his card likely occurred because Fine and a man whose last name was Lee both had appointments on April 12 at around the same time with Customs agents at Kennedy Airport.

When he arrived at JFK, he was barely seated before an officer looked at his name, said a mistake had been made, and ushered him outside, Fine said.

“They used my information and my file for someone else,” he said he was told.

“They told me at that point they flagged it, but the office is in DC and that it’s going to take six hours to resolve,” he said.

Later that day, he got an e-mail congratulating him on getting the Global Entry card.

He received the card with the wrong photo a week later.

Fine said his calls to CBP, which like the TSA is part of Homeland Security, have gone unanswered. He even went back to JFK, and, “They just kept blowing me off,” he said.

On Friday — after The Post inquired about the matter —— CBP sent Fine an e-mail notifying him that the card has been revoked.

CBP spokesman David Long said he couldn’t comment on Fine’s situation for privacy reasons, but insisted “instances like this are extremely rare.“