The Hindu : New Delhi News : Mushrooming visa rackets Law & order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 07, 2007
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New Delhi

Mushrooming visa rackets Law & order

Fake visa rackets have been flourishing as people are willing to spend in search of greener pastures abroad, reports Devesh K. Pandey

The huge seizure of fake visas by the Special Cell of the Delhi police about a fortnight ago indicates how gangs involved in this business have flourished over the years. These gangs mostly target people willing to shell out any amount of money in search of greener pastures abroad.

Conforming to the basic economic paradigm of demand-supply interdependence, visa and passport rackets are thriving because an ever increasing number of people are desperate to settle abroad. Such a practice is directly linked to the prevailing problem of illegal immigration and human smuggling rackets. For a large number of people from States like Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala, such gangs are of great help as they arrange the documents necessary to clear immigration.

A man arrested recently by the Special Cell allegedly with 25 passports and over 150 forged visas of the United States, United Kingdom, Korea, Slovenia, Japan, Switzerland, Mexico and Senegal, apart from six fake driving licenses of the United Arab Emirates was also on his way to Punjab to strike deals with interested parties.

The accused who was earlier arrested on the same charges was an expert at faking visas. The tools he used to forge the documents included a laptop, scanner, printer, colour dyes, holograms, fake security stickers and fake rubber stamps of various embassies.

There are various ways in which gangs into the visa business operate. In the normal course, they help their clients obtain visas on the basis of forged documents. There are gangs that arrange stolen passports bearing visas of various countries from criminals who target people applying for visas. Then the culprits tamper with the passports to introduce photographs and other details of the clients.

Investigations have revealed that many of those in the fake passport and visa racket rely on gangs -- mostly from Chennai and Hyderabad – who specialise in sewing tampered passports. These experts are sometimes brought by air for “bulk jobs”. The police also suspect that large-scale passport tampering is also done in the Gulf countries using sophisticated equipments.

There are several gangs that cheat people by supplying forged visas. The visas are forged by using scanners, applying chemicals and using improvised embossing equipments to create security features. Now that vigilance at Delhi and Mumbai airports has been stepped up, investigating agencies have found that people, mostly from Gujarat and Punjab, try to sneak out of the country on fake visas from other places including Cochin and Hyderabad. While some manage to clear the security check, most of them get caught at destination points and are deported to India. Interestingly when over 500 blank passports sent from the Indian Security Press in Nasik to the Ministry of External Affairs went missing from the Indira Gandhi International Airport here a couple of months ago, intelligence and security agencies were alarmed that they might land in the hands of dubious travel agents. However, it was a matter of great relief for them that almost all the passports were later recovered. While the police keep smashing fake visa rackets from time to time, there is also a need to launch public awareness campaigns in States where these gangs are active. Also, airports should install more sophisticated scanners to check genuineness of visas and passports.

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