Everything that has been said on this thread has a lot of merit. But let's not forget that a man is innocent until proven guilty. No professional pilot or law abiding individual can condone the practice though.
However, let's not focus on the 'biro brigade' too much. What about the pilots thoughout the industry who never passed an examination in the first place to get their license.
A few years ago ('80s)certainly in the UK it was well known that an individual could pay a 'professional exam sitter' to undetake the written exams. The CAA later caught onto this and introduced a requriement to produce a passport or photo ID when attending.
There must be quite a few pilots out there who are 'technically' unlicensed. There are long term F/O's who have never obtained an ATPL for fear of being detected by comparison of signature and other means. Some of these characters reside in UK charter companies. They live in fear of a mandatory type change for which, under the rules now, they require an ATPL.
[This message has been edited by Teevasis (edited 31 March 2001).]