Hyderabad: The Task Force police busted a five-member gang which helped citizens across the country flee abroad illegally by making changes to their passports. Preliminary investigations revealed that about 450 persons had fled the country using the tampered passports.
Hyderabad city police commissioner Anjani Kumar said that the gang was busted during raids by Task Force, North, sleuths at Saidabad and Golkonda.
The accused were identified as Mohd Abdul Raheemuddin, 42, of Motigalli, Hussaini Alam, who is skilled in preparing fake documents and his helper Khaled Khan, 40, of Golconda, Syed Omran, 32, of Tappachabutra who designed monograms and logos and Mohd Zaheeruddin, 49, a maker of rubber stamp who could make copies of official stamps. The fifth gang member was from Rayapuram, Chennai, Mohammed Shaik Illiyas, 49, who is skilled in tampering with passports and creating fake visas.
Mr Kumar said the accused became friends after meeting at prisons and had facilitated people to leave to Canada, the USA, the UAE, France, Spain, Italy, Australia and other countries.
Raheemuddin, the kingpin, had lived in the USA for about 19 months and had learned that the embassies and immigration departments of many countries do not possess data pertaining to the previous travel of a visa applicant, Mr Kumar said.
The gang charged Rs 40,000 to tamper with the passport and arrange a visa interview. If the visa was issued, they would charge about Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh.
Explaining how the gang operated, a Task Force official cited the example of one Osman (name changed) of Mirchowk who wanted to move to Canada for work. He had cleared only his Class-X and could not get a visa legally, and approached the gang. He had a passport which was issued in Hyderabad.
The gang replaced the front and last pages of the passport and made it appear that it was issued as London. Other pages were replaced with those containing forged exit stamping from the UK immigration department and a few other countries, the official said.
Osman used this passport, which appeared to be issued in London, and secured a Canadian visa easily. The gang then removed the forged papers and replaced them with the original in the passport, the Task Force official said.
Responding to query, the official said, “Several countries do not have access to the information of travellers from other countries. They can only check the identity of the applicant which would be the same as the original, but they do not have data on the visa stamping.”
Raheemuddin has earned profits of over Rs 1 crore in the illegal business and bought plots and houses, said an official.
The police seized 88 passports, three fake passports, two tampered passports, 130 fake rubber stamps pertaining to immigration departments of various countries, Rs 3.12 lakh cash, computers, laptop, a stamp making machine, printers, 7 phones, two pen drives and other documents.
