Travel racket busted: Cops nab 59 for forging visas, passports
NEW DELHI: The police have arrested 59 persons in an operation launched in September last year to crack down on a racket that helped people travel abroad illegally on fake papers such as passports and visas, senior officers said on Sunday.
Deputy commissioner of police (Delhi airport) Rajeev Ranjan said a special drive was launched last year after immigration officials confronted an increasing number of passengers who were deported from other countries for travelling on illegal documents.
In 2020, 107 cases were registered and 134 passengers arrested in such instances. All of these were travelling through Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, the DCP said. This year, the police have registered 23 such cases and arrested 28 passengers. These passengers were caught by immigration officials at IGI airport and were later handed over to the police.
Most of such passengers were from Punjab, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, said a police officer, who was a part of the operation, based on the scrutiny of the travel papers and the questioning of the suspects. The officer said many of these did not match the profile and requirements to travel to their destination countries and therefore could not obtain a visa or a passport through legal channels. Many of these were caught on their arrival in India after being deported from the destination country for holding improper or fake visas or doctored passports, the officer said.
Another investigator, who wished not to be named, said most people got in touch with the agents who made fake travel papers though common friends or acquaintances. He said it took the agents roughly a week or two to arrange fake visas.
The police got its initial leads from the interrogation of the people arrested from airports. It emerged that gangs in Punjab, Gujarat and other states were engaged in an organised racket of preparing fake visas and passports to facilitate travellers who were ready to pay them anything between ₹50,000 to ₹5 lakh, depending on the destination.
“Several teams were dispatched to various locations of Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Mumbai and Haryana to nab the identified suspects,” the officer said.
The DCP said of the 59 men arrested so far at least 10 were “masterminds”. Most of these men are involved in cases reported in the pre-covid time as during most part of 2020 international travel remained shut, he said.
A third investigator said the suspects charged up to ₹1 lakh for a visa to West Asia and south-east Asian countries and a Schengen Visa for European countries and a visa to USA and Canada costed ₹3-5 lakh. “Charges for making fake passports were less – between ₹20,000 to ₹50,000 – but for visas, it varied depending upon the country of travel. While ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh were charged for visas to Gulf nations and southeast Asian countries, they demanded ₹2-5 lakh for visas to Canada, USA or UK. The money charged for visas to European countries, Australia and countries like New Zealand even went up to ₹4-8 lakh. The payments were usually made in cash,” the officer said.
DCP Ranjan said that the crackdown is continuing and that more arrests are likely in time to come.
“We have recovered fake stamps which they used to prepare forged visa and passports. During questioning, the suspects told us that they mostly got clients from people who they knew and they charged money according to the country or how desperate a person was to travel abroad,” the DCP said.
In the latest case, three people were handed over by the immigration officials at Delhi airport to the police on February 2. A man from Sitamarhi in Bihar was arrested at the airport for allegedly travelling to Maldives on fake employment visa. The man was caught around 8am at Terminal 3 after he was deported from Male airport for holding fake documents.the same day,two men belonging to Nuh in Haryana, were deported from Maldives for holding fake employment visa and were caught at the Delhi airport at 2am.