Hyderabad: Cops see human trafficking link in forged sponsor letters

HYDERABAD: Investigations revealed that 31 persons approached the US consulate with forged sponsor letters of US-based software engineer Komatireddy Sirish Reddy of Hyderabad and there is also role of a human trafficking gang.
Police are waiting for the US consulate to provide details of the accused so that they can further probe the matter. The racket first came to light after Sirish’s wife Mounika Reddy Chintala lodged a complaint with Begumpet police on January 28, alleging that some unidentified people had approached the US consulate with forged visa sponsorship letters in her husband’s name.

The people who approached the consulate belong to Khammam district. “Some of them were in their 20s and 30s. We found out that all of them hailed from Khammam. We suspect that they were going to the US to work as domestic helps. It was a clear case of human trafficking racket,” said a police official.
In her complaint, Mounika mentioned the names of 29 people who approached the consulate with forged documents and 21 of them were women.
Police suspect that the sponsorship letters had reached the hands of human trafficking gang through a photo copy center worker in Hyderabad. “When one of the family members went to make a photo copy of the sponsorship letter, someone made a copy of it and later the same letter was forged by the accused,” police said.
During the investigation, cops found out that a group of 31 people had approached the consulate in 2018 carrying visa sponsorship letters issued by Sirish. However, none of them got the visa as they failed to clear the interview.
Mounika told cops that her husband had issued visa sponsorship letters to eight persons, including her and seven family members. “Out of the eight people, me and two relatives travelled to the US and returned to India,” Mounika said.
Begumpet police issued a notice to the US consulate under Section 91 of the CrPC, asking it to provide documents and other evidence pertaining to the forged visa sponsorship case. “We have received some documents and need to get more details, especially the documents furnished at the time of visa interview, including photographs and fingerprints along with key contact numbers and stay information in the US,” said an official, who is part of the probe.