But even RAF hours are easy to 'pad'. One pilot in my last airline was in the race for a command and got it ahead of some of his peers who were also ex-RAF. thye smelled a rat and pinted out that as a FJ pilot in the RAF, it was fairly unlikey he had been flying 600 hours a year. Further scrutiny and some minimal checking showed the fraud and he was sacked.
And even worse, Air 2bob (I think) had a an ex RAF pilot who got his command and had his logbbok insopected by a manager who couldn't remeber the guy, even though he claimed to be on the same Sqn at the same time. It turns out he was really an air trafficker and his whole RAF flying career was an invention! He was prosecuted for fraud and sacked, but is now back flying.
And close scrutiny of logbooks isn't the answer either. In Italy, every flight has to be counterstamped by an official, but flase hours are endemic there. My company won't lokk at anyone with an Italian licence (amongst other countries) due to the level of hours fraud there.
These fraudsterss are dishonest to their colleagues, a liability to thier passengers and employers and technically criminals. I've heard of people bragging about P51 (Parker 51!) hours, the people passing on the story who didn't do anything about it were equally as guilty. The only policy acceptable is reporting these dangers to themselves and theer passengers to the authorities.
And if you think this is a bit extreme, those of you who have read Ernest Gann's autoboigraphy ''Fate is the Hunter'' will recall his remorse in not doing something about a pilot who was obviously a fraud who subsequently went on to kill himself and all his passengers.