E-Paper
Chandigarh: Immigration firm staff booked for ₹53-lakh overseas job scam
According to the primary complainant, Manjinderpal Kaur, 34, a resident of Gurdaspur, Punjab, she came across an Instagram advertisement by the consultancy in February 2025; the ad offered caregiver visa services for Australia under Subclass 116
A city-based immigration firm, The High Visa Consultant, was booked under criminal case for allegedly cheating at least 10 individuals of over ₹53.89 lakh under the pretext of sending them to Australia on work visas.
The accused include Shiv Kumar, Neha Gautam, and others associated with The High Visa Consultant, operating from SCO 105-106, Sector 17-B, and SCO 1096-1097, 2nd Floor, Sector 22-B, Chandigarh.
According to the primary complainant, Manjinderpal Kaur, 34, a resident of Gurdaspur, Punjab, she came across an Instagram advertisement by the consultancy in February 2025. The ad offered caregiver visa services for Australia under Subclass 116. Upon contacting the firm, she was lured into paying ₹40,000 for an “interview”, allegedly conducted by a fake immigration lawyer named Himanshu Gautam.
After the staged interview, she was asked to deposit 40% of the visa cost, amounting to ₹6.80 lakh, into the company’s bank account. The complainant was also made to sign a fraudulent job offer letter and received a notarised fake agreement via email. Over the next 50 days, she repeatedly followed up but was misled by another individual using the alias “Mandeep”. Eventually, the firm cut all communication and took down their contact details, leading to the realisation that she had been duped.
The probe revealed a well-organised racket with multiple victims across Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The total amount swindled in these cases stands at a staggering ₹53,89,000, according to the police.
Following a detailed preliminary investigation into the complaints, the police found sufficient evidence of a coordinated immigration fraud scheme.
The case, dated July 27, was registered under Sections 318(4) and 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, and Section 24 of the Immigration Act, based on multiple complaints filed through the Integrated Complaint Management System (ICMS).
