Delhi police busts gang that forged travel records for visa busted
Sixty-two passports of different travellers and 28 fake immigration stamps of countries, including India, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore, were recovered from Saurav.
The Delhi police arrested six men, who ran a gang that forged profiles of travellers to make them look like frequent fliers to smoothen the process of acquiring a visa.
Police said the six men used fake immigration stamps and bank documents to forge a traveller’s background. Sixty-two fake passports and 28 fake immigration stamps of Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and India were recovered from the suspects, who were arrested in an operation that lasted a fortnight.
Deputy commissioner of police (IGIA) Sanjay Bhatia said that in the early hours of March 2, they were informed of a couple—Sunita Kumari and Ravinder Singh, both Indian nationals—that was flying to Canada on a Canadian visa via Air Canada, but had no travel history in the immigrations passenger log.
“There was no arrival and departure record against the couple’s passport in the system. The Indian immigration stamps affixed on their passport were also found to be fake. It was suspected that they had created fake travel history to get the Canadian visas by forging the Indian immigration stamp and they were arrested,” the DCP said.
During the probe, Sunita and Ravinder were questioned. They revealed that they wanted to settle in Canada and therefore, approached one of their friends, Shyam, who introduced them to an agent named Vicky, alias Jitender, whose shop was near Brahm Sarovar in Kurukshetra.
“Jitender charged the couple Rs 6 lakh to make a Canadian visa. He contacted another agent Sachin Kumar, who took both the passengers to Chandigarh and arranged for their visas. Sachin also arranged for fake immigration stamps to make both the passengers look like frequent travellers. On this, our teams tracked down Jitender and he was arrested from Haryana’s Kurukshetra about a fortnight ago,” Bhatia said.
Jitender told the police that Sachin procured the fake immigration stamps and pasted them on the couple’s passports.
“Acting on the information, we arrested Sachin Kumar on March 27. Sachin told us that he had given the couple’s passports to one Saurav who got the forged immigration stamp affixed to make the couple look like frequent travellers. We learnt that Saurav also runs an English speaking institute in Kurukshetra. Two days later, on March 29, we arrested Saurav,” DCP Bhatia said.
Sixty-two passports of different travellers and 28 fake immigration stamps of countries, including India, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore, were recovered from Saurav.
“On Saurav’s instance, the police arrested one Mukesh Goyal on Saturday from New Colony in Kurukshetra, Haryana. Goyal disclosed that till date he had prepared 20-25 fake immigration and bank stamps for Saurav and his associates in exchange for money,” Bhatia said.