Delhi Police Crime Branch busts fake passport gang, arrests 8 accused

New Delhi [India], December 1 (ANI): Anti-Gang Squad (AGS) of the Delhi Police's Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested eight accused in connection with a Fake Visa racket being operated from Connaught Place in Delhi, the police sources informed.
The gang was involved in the forgery of bank account statements, ITR and other supporting documents required for securing the VISA from different countries, said the Delhi police in its statement, adding that, 8 persons including the mastermind of the racket have been apprehended in the matter.
The accused in the matter were identified as Baldev Raj, Guruji, Ronni, and Shiva Rama Krishnan assisted by accomplices Neeraj, Sunil and Pankaj. The Police have seized 300 passports from various countries and a large number of forged and incriminating documents, along with stamps, laptops, and tablets from their possession.
According to the Special Commissioner of Police (CP) crime, Ravinder Yadav, "The syndicate was being operated under the garb of doing Tour and Travel business and in order to disguise the law enforcement agency, the accused had registered a firm, named 'Green Tour and Travel', with the wrong address".
He further stated, "The accused are doing this illegal business for the last 10-12 years and have expertise in preparing forged bank statements, ITRs and other documents required for securing the VISA of different countries. This network is far-flung and spread in many states including Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP," adding that the members of the racket were using, "highly encrypted Mobile applications like WhatsApp for communication and running this illegal business".
Speaking about the modus operandi, the police in its statement informed that the accused had included one Spiritual personality, in whom, people have good faith and he was arranging a large number of clients for the group.
"The aspirants are mostly unemployed youth who wanted to go abroad in search of employment. Accused persons were charging hefty amounts in lieu of services rendered by them to the aspirants", said the police in its statement adding that the quality of forged account statements prepared by accused persons was of such perfection that even the bank employees were stunned to see the forged statements during the enquiry process.
Informing about the operation, the Delhi police informed, "Keeping in view the rapid surge in the incidents of fraud committed by organized syndicates on the pretext of sending people to foreign shores and large-scale scams running worldwide, Crime Branch was tasked to track down such syndicates and to take legal action against them".
"After diligent groundwork, the 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 were recovered", added Delhi police in its statement.
As per the information, some of the bank statements recovered during the raid were got verified by the concerned authorities and were found forged.
Accordingly, a criminal case under sections 419/120B/420/465/467/468/471/472/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and section 12 Passport Act, has been registered by the Crime Branch police station of Delhi.
Further investigation into the matter is underway. (ANI)