Passport racketeers target Gujaratis

HYDERABAD: Denied visas by foreign consulates, many Gujaratis desperate to reach America are becoming fodder for an interstate fake passport racket operating out of Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
In the last three months, at least 17 people from Gujarat have been arrested by the Begumpet police for travelling on fake passports after they were deported from America, Singapore and Dubai.
They comprise more than a third of those arrested for travelling on fake passports during that period. In the last one year, the number of Gujarat natives caught travelling on fake passports is about 50.
According to deputy commissioner of police (Special Branch) Jayarami Reddy, consulates have detected a large number of cases of Gujaratis travelling on fake papers. “A large section of people of the state are settled in America and their relatives from India wish to join them. So when they are denied visas, they are turning to racketeers.�
The DCP said the racket is not confined to Hyderabad, but has spread to Mumbai, Bangalore and other cities too.
The racket works like this: A broker collects about Rs 80,000 per passport and contacts his associate in Hyderabad. The Hyderabad broker ‘purchases’ passports of people of an identical age from people here, which are then forwarded to his Gujarat counterpart. The latter employs a forger who replaces the original picture with a picture of his client.
“The client assumes the identity of the original passport holder and is coached about the background of the person,� he said. The DCP said the unfortunate thing was that most of these people who were arrested hail from villages and hardly knew the consequences of travelling on fake passport.
A case in point is that of Beena, a 20-year-old girl hailing from Mehsana in Gujarat. She was deported from Singapore on November 20. “When we arrested her, the girl said it was her father who had procured the passport for her through a broker and that she did not know that she was travelling on a fake passport.� The broker who travelled with her to Singapore disappeared at the airport. Incidentally, despite so many people having been caught in the last three months, the police have caught only one broker.