Genuine passport, genuine visa, but it's a racket
Italy was one of the main destinations; more than 700 sent abroad; CID arrests two suspects after five-month manhunt
After a five-month manhunt, Criminal Investigations Department (CID) sleuths have arrested two men who had allegedly sent more than 700 people to European countries -- and they had genuine visas and genuine passports.
Investigations have revealed that the men have charged three million rupees to prepare the necessary documents.
The duo operated from two offices in Marawila and Kochchikadae in Negombo and had in their possession an assortment of immigration office rubber stamps and visa stickers of various countries, passport binding machines and some 15,000 documents.
The CID launched its investigations in March after the arrest of a youth who was trying to leave for Italy. His passport had indicated he had travelled to Italy earlier. A careful check of the passport revealed that though it contained the Immigration Department's seal of departure stamped at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), there was no seal to indicate that he had returned to the country.
Inquiries revealed that he was using a passport of a person already living in Italy but it carried the youth's photograph instead of the holder's.
The youth told the sleuths that a man in Marawila prepared the document for him and that several others also had sought his help to travel to Europe.
However, a manhunt to arrest the two men drew a blank but the detectives managed to get details about them. The search for the suspects continued for five months.
The sleuths made a breakthrough in the investigations last month, when they arrested the suspect who operated from Marawilaa. He was the man to be contacted if someone wanted to leave for Europe using forged visas and passports. His accomplices in Italy collected the passports of those who had come to Italy and sent them across to him.
He also ran a network of sub-agents who operated from Jaffna, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa and other parts of the country.
The arrest of this suspect led the detectives to the office of the other suspect. But he had removed the printers, document and rubber seals, before he went into hiding. However, three weeks later, the second suspect was arrested in Kochchikade. Police recovered the machinery used in the forgery, some 5,000 visa stickers of various European countries, 25 passports prepared for delivery, some 1,700 visa applications and a large number of photographs.
"The discovery shows the magnitude of the operation. The suspects have admitted that they have sent more than 700 people overseas, but we believe that the number is much higher," a CID officer said.
Explaining the racket, the detective said the suspects had resorted to different rackets to send people abroad.
One of the methods they had used was to paste on the prospective migrant's genuine passport forged visa stickers of other countries. They would also stamp the passport with the relevant immigration seal. This was to give the impression to the visa officer that the holder of the passport was a regular traveller. The applicant would be then told to apply for a visa under his name.
The detective said most of visa applica- tions had gone to the Italian embassy which has issued visas.
"After the visa is received, the pages with the forged visas are removed and the passport is rebound enabling the passenger to make use of the document to travel overseas," the detective said.The duo obtained an advance -- usually Rs 500,000 or upto Rs 1 million -- to prepare the documents and the balance money paid to an agent in Italy when the person arrives there. The CID officer said there could be a possibility that some Immigration Department officers were also involved in the racket because the tampering of the passports had not been detected even it was scanned on the machine at the airport desk.
"We have collected information on the persons who have travelled overseas using these tamperered documents. We have blacklisted them and will be arrested on arrival," the detective said.
The two suspects, Christopher Fernando and Mohamed Fahard, are under custody pending further inquirers.