Visa scam: 29 fraudsters travelled to US with Hyderabad man’s documents

HYDERABAD: Wife of a US-based software engineer lodged a complaint with the Begumpet police, alleging that 29 fraudsters have travelled to the United States by obtaining visas using forged sponsorship documents in her husband’s name.
Police received the complaint on Monday night from Chintala Mounika Reddy, wife of Komati Reddy Sireesh Reddy, who has been employed in the US since 2007.Stating that the 29 fraudsters who had gone to the US had caused mental trauma to her family, Mounika urged cops to arrest the accused.
It all unfolded on January 23 when Mounika, who came to Hyderabad on January 21, had gone to the US consulate for extension of her visa. Two days later, she received an email from the US consulate, stating that 29 persons had travelled to the US by forging the sponsorship letters, alleged to have been issued by her husband. Mounika said her husband had not issued any such letters. “The 29 persons are in no way connected to our family. It appears that they forged the sponsorship letters in my husband’s name and misused it,” Mounika said in her complaint. Mounika also told cops that the consulate had sent an email to her husband on January 25, seeking information from him. “My husband gave the required info to the authorities,” Mounika said.
Police found out that some of the family members who got the sponsorship letters initially had photocopies of the same at local shops in the city. “One of the employees might have kept some copies and later forged the same to get US visas,” a cop said. No arrests have been made. “Based on the complaint, we registered a cheating and forgery case under sections 420, 468, 471 of the IPC,” Begumpet ACP A Ram Reddy said.
Of the eight persons to whom Sireesh had sponsored the visas, only three, including Mounika, had visited the US and they all have returned to India. The rest of the people have not gone to the US. Sireesh has a house in New Jersey.