Six arrested in Delhi for forging and tampering passports and immigration stamps

The Delhi police on Sunday arrested six persons, including an IELTS coach who was in connection with the issuance of fake immigration stamps and passports. They seized a total of 62 passports and 28 fake stamps from the arrested individuals.

Disclosing the offenders' identities, the police identified them as Saurav, International English Language Testing System (IELTS) coach, Vicky, a herbal products businessman and two agents named Sachin Kumar and Mukesh Goyal.

They further said that a couple, Ravinder Singh and his wife Sunita Kumari, were also arrested for getting the forged immigration stamps from the agents. Ravinder and his wife were wanting to travel to Canada.

Sanjay Bhatia, Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport), said that on the intervening night of March 1 and 2, they received a complaint about suspected fake and forged Indian immigration stamp in respect to two Indian nationals namely Sunita Kumari and Ravinder Singh who were seeking departure to Canada on the strength of Canadian visit visa by Air Canada.

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Bhatia said that it was found that there was no travel history of the couple in the immigration passenger log and the immigration stamps affixed on their passports were fake and forged.

The deputy commissioner added that Kumari and Singh wanted to go and settle down in Canada. They approached their friend Shyam who introduced them to an agent named Vicky who runs a shop in Kurukshetra in Haryana.

Vicky took Rs 6 lakh from them on the pretext of arranging Canadian visas. He arranged for another agent, Sachin Kumar, who took the couple to Chandigarh and arranged for their visa. The agent arranged for fake immigration stamps for them to make them look like frequent travelers, the DCP said.

Further adding, Bhatia revealed that while questioning Vicky, he disclosed that it was Kumar who had procured the fake immigration stamps and placed the same on the passports. They arrested Kumar on March 27.

After him, Goyal was arrested and he revealed that till date he had prepared 20-25 fake immigration and bank stamps for Saurav and his associates.

Vicky used to induce people on the pretext of arranging visas and sending them abroad. For which he arranged meetings of the clients with Kumar, said the official.

The police further concluded from their investigations that Kumar was in touch with various agents from Mohali and Kurukshetra and used to take passports of clients on the pretext of preparing the file; while agent Saurav and others used to affix fake immigration stamps of various countries on the passports to create a fake travel history as this assisted in procuring a visa from the embassy concerned.

The offenders also used fake bank stamps to create fake bank account statements, said the police.

(With PTI inputs)