NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police busted a major fake visa racket and arrested eight people operating it from Connaught Place, Central Delhi, on Wednesday. Over 300 passports from various countries amongst several other incriminating materials were recovered by the police.
Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravinder Singh Yadav said a team from Crime Branch was tasked to track down such syndicates that are committing fraud on the pretext of sending people to foreign shores.
“We received credible input that one such gang is operating from Connaught Place, Delhi and other places after which a raid was conducted at many places simultaneously and during the search, a large number of passports incriminating documents, currency, forged bank statements, stamps, letters pads etc was recovered,” the Special CP said.
The mastermind of the syndicate, Baldev Raj, had contested an election in Punjab before moving to Delhi in 2003. He along with his associates used to allegedly forge bank account statements, income tax returns and other supporting documents required for securing the visas
Other accused are identified as SR Krishnan, 39, Sunil Bisht, 40, NB Joshi, 43, Ansh Madan, 23, PK Shukla, 30, Balihar Singh, 43, and Kuldeep Singh, 56. Accordingly, the police registered an FIR under the relevant sections of the law. Bisht was previously involved in 27 cases related to visa fraud in 2010.
He joined Raj in 2012. Balihar used to do kirtan/bhajan before joining this group. He came in contact with Bisht in 2021 and started working as an agent. Being a spiritual personality, many people were having faith in him and he arranged for several clients who were aspirants of going abroad, police said.
A total of 293 passports, including four Bangladeshi and two Nepali, a large number of forged documents, cash worth Rs five lakh etc. were recovered from their possession, police added. During interrogation, the accused disclosed that they were in this business for the last 10-12 years, under the garb of running a travel & tour business, ‘Green Tour and Travel’.
“This network is spread out in many states including Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh among others. The members of the racket were using encrypted mobile applications like WhatsApp for communication and running this business,” the official added.