KOCHI: The police will seek the assistance of the law enforcement agency in Spain as part of its probe into the case, in which three people from Kerala were deported from Spain a couple of years ago after they were allegedly caught travelling with fake Schengen visas.
The Ernakulam Rural police have decided to approach the police agency in Spain, through the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the two nations, for an authenticity report, as it suspects the visas issued to the trio were fake.
The incident came to light in November 2022 after an Alappuzha youth was detained by Spanish authorities at the airport for allegedly travelling on a fake Schengen visa. He was deported. The Kerala Police, which launched a probe after registering a case against under the Passport Act, found a woman from Aluva and a Kannur native had similarly been deported from Spain.
The probe led to the arrest of Kasaragod native Jobin Michael and Palakkad native Prithviraj Kumar, who allegedly arranged the visas for the victims after taking `6 lakh from them. “Schengen visa is issued to people with higher educational qualifications. However, the victims had only studied till Plus Two. We found that the agents did not inform them about the rules about Schengen visa,” said a police officer.
The police will seek information from the Kingdom of Spain on the authenticity of the visas issued to the victims. “For this, we have decided to make use of the MLAT. We will file a request with the MHA. A Letter Rogatory (LR) will be issued from a court concerned here to the authorities in Spain through the MHA. Recently, the state home department gave us nod to approach the MHA and invoke MLAT,” said the officer.
There have been incidents of Kochi courts issuing LRs in cases having international links. In 2015, an officer from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Kochi had questioned a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative, who was arrested and jailed in France in the Paris attack case, after an LR was issued from the NIA court in Kochi. In 2017, the CBI court had issued LR to get information from six countries about the smuggling of luxury cars by a Keralite. In 2019, an NIA court issued an LR to Qatar for information on five youngsters from Kerala who joined al-Qaeda-linked terror groups in Syria.