Girish Bhandari, 48, Himanshu Mehta, 23, Gagan Sharma, 22, and Ramesh Arya, 38, had been running the syndicate under the garb of a tour and travel business for the last 10-12 years, police said
Image used for representational purpose.
Delhi Police has arrested four men who allegedly sent people abroad on forged papers, a senior officer said on Sunday.
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Girish Bhandari, 48, Himanshu Mehta, 23, Gagan Sharma, 22, and Ramesh Arya, 38, had been running the syndicate under the garb of a tour and travel business for the last 10-12 years, police said.
Bhandari, the mastermind of the racket, had registered a firm 'Harsh Tour and Travel' opening its office in west Delhi's Tilak Nagar, they said. Police seized 80 passports of several countries and a cache of forged documents, stamps, and laptops with the arrest, said the officer.
Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav said that based on a tip off, a raid was conducted at an office in Prem Nagar, Tilak Nagar and four persons were arrested with large number of passports incriminating documents, currency, forged bank statements, letter pads of different firms and companies.
The accused operated from Delhi and had their agents spread all over NCR, Haryana, Punjab, and Gujarat.
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These agents lured the people with a promise of an illegal landing in a foreign nation and charged them a minimum of Rs 6 lakh for a Schengen visa which is valid in 27 countries. The gang charged around Rs 27 lakh per person for entry to the United States from US-Mexico border, he said.
The members of the gang would first collect original passport and bank details of their patrons and then would forge documents with the help of editing software. They would then get a visa processed on the basis of these fake documents and would charge additional money from people ahead of boarding, the officer said.
The accused would send people in a batch of four-five from New Delhi or Jaipur to Baku-Istanbul-EL Salvador. The second preferred route was via Europe-Mexico, the police said.
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