On September 2, a man from Haryana, Sandeep, was caught attempting to fly to Italy on a fake Swedish visa during an immigration check at Delhi airport. Upon questioning, he revealed that several people from his village had visited abroad using the same counterfeit visas. Sandeep’s revelations led to the busting of a fake visa racket operating out of Delhi for the last five years, which had produced four to five thousand forged visas so far and had made a whopping Rs 300 crore doing so.
Sandeep revealed that he managed to get the fake visa through an agent named Asif Ali for Rs 10 lakh. Following this, the police arrested Asif Ali and his associates Shiva Gautam and Naveen Rana. During the investigation, Shiva Gautam revealed the names of two more agents linked to the gang- Balbir Singh and Jaswinder Singh, who were also arrested. They later disclosed that the fake visas for several countries were made in a factory in Delhi’s Tilak Nagar area which was operated by a man named Manoj Monga.
The police then raided the factory in Tilak Nagar and arrested Manoj Monga, who has a diploma in graphic design. Around five years ago, Manoj met a man called Jaideep Singh, who encouraged him to use his graphic designing skills to make counterfeit visas. He also provided Manoj with the necessary equipment.
According to the police, they were making some 30-60 fake visas every month and could prepare a visa sticker in just 20 minutes. Every fake visa was sold for Rs 8-10 lakh. The racket used Telegram, Signal, and WhatsApp for communication and had an intricate web of local agents across several regions who would connect with people seeking jobs abroad.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, IGI Airport Usha Rangrani said that so far, six people have been arrested and 16 Nepali passports, two Indian passports, 30 visa stickers, and 23 visa stamps have been recovered. A lot of equipment used in making the forged visas such as dye machines, printers, laminating sheets, laptops, UV machines, and more have also been recovered in the raid.
