International travel scam unearthed, 4 held, 80 passports seized

New Delhi: The Crime Branch of the Delhi Police on Sunday said four persons have been arrested for duping people on the pretext of sending them abroad. The police have found that Mexico and El Salvador-based agents were also working for the gang, and seized 80 passports.

The gang charged Rs six lakh for Schengen Visa, (valid in 27 countries).

For illegal entry in the US through the Mexico border, they used to charge around Rs 27 Lakh per person.

The police have recovered 80 passports of various countries and forged documents from their possession.

The accused were identified as Girish Bhandari (48), Himanshu Mehta (23), Gagan Sharma (22) and Ramesh Arya (38).

The police said that they had been working on the gang for a long time. Bhandari is believed to be the mastermind of the gang.

“We conducted a raid in Tilak Nagar, Delhi and apprehended the four accused. We learnt that the accused persons were running the crime syndicate in the garb of Tour & Travel Business. The accused have agents in NCR,” the official said.

The police said that the interrogation of the accused has revealed that they have been operating the illegal racket for the past 10 to 12 years.

The Police said that the network was spread in several states, including Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat. The members of the racket were using highly encrypted applications for communications and to facilitate their illegal business.