Police arrest six persons for obtaining passports with forged documents

Fake Passport Investigation Wing busts overseas job passport fraud racket in Chennai, agents arrested, passports seized, investigation ongoing.

In a major operation, the Fake Passport Investigation Wing, Central Crime Branch (CCB), Chennai, busted a racket where agents helped people seeking overseas jobs obtain passports fraudulently.

The special wing of the Greater Chennai Police (GCP) began investigating following a series of complaints from the Bureau of Immigration officials, who found that a couple of passengers had obtained their passports fraudulently. The police traced the agents who were operating from Madurai, Sivaganga, and Theni districts and raided their offices.

After first, the personnel raided Sai Tours and Travels, which was run by A. Kalyan, 40, at Parasuraman Patti in Madurai. They then raided at Metro Studio and Travels, which was run by the main suspect, Nallah Mohammed, 60, at Devakottai in Sivaganga district. They seized passports that had been obtained fraudulently. The police arrested Kalyan, Nallah Mohammed, P. Sathishkumar, 46, R. Nazar Ali, 47, M. Bhousal Rahman, 29, and P. Kumar, 48.

Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, a senior police officer said the agents targeted persons who had gone abroad for work but had been sent back and blacklisted due to reasons such as overstaying on a tourist visa or possession of invalid or fake work permits. The agents collected lakhs from such persons after promising them that they would send them overseas again on new passports. They used forged papers to obtain new Aadhaar and PAN cards for their clients. With these, the clients would apply for new passports.

The police seized 55 passports, laptops, computers, and agreements entered with job aspirants. The recovered passports were sent to the Regional Passport Office concerned to verify their authenticity. The arrested were remanded in judicial custody. Further investigation is on.