Police have arrested two Jalandhar men who, through a fake immigration firm, duped 15 residents of Punjab of a total of ₹2.27 crore after promising to help them move abroad.
The accused, Kamaljeet Singh, 34, and Mandeep Kumar, 37, were running a fake immigration company in the name of AS Immigration Consultants in Sector 34, said police.
After duping their victims, they had shut down their operations in Chandigarh and Jalandhar, and were now planning to open an office in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, before they landed in police net.
The duo introduced themselves to their clients with fake identities and used their documents to open bank accounts and secure mobile SIM cards. Police said around 95% of their victims had applied for student visas.
A total of 10 mobile phones, a laptop, two ATM cards and various forged documents, including Aadhaar cards, licences and PAN cards, were recovered from the accused’s possession.
How the fraud came to fore
{{/usCountry}}How the fraud came to fore
{{/usCountry}}Bhupinder Singh of Moga had lodged a complaint with Sector 34 police last year that after seeing an advertisement of the said immigration company on Facebook, he visited their Sector-34 office as his daughter wanted to settle in Canada.
Accused Kamaljeet introduced himself as Arvinder Singh and took all original documents of his daughter, and assured to arrange her visa and travel. Convinced by his assurances, Bhupinder paid Kamaljeet ₹20 lakh.
But when he and his daughter returned to the office to collect the visa and tickets, they found the office closed and no one present there. Kamaljeet had also switched off his mobile phone.
On the same day, some other clients, who had also paid large sums to Kamaljeet, also gathered there.
On Bhupinder’s complaint, police had registered a criminal case at the Sector 34 station on May 23, 2022.
Realising that their clients would have approached police, both the accused threw their mobile phones in a truck plying from Chandigarh to Uttarakhand and fled to Jalandhar after closing their office in Sector 34.
“Tracking their location, our teams kept conducting raids in Uttarakhand and nearby areas, but with no success,” said a senior police officer said.
After the case was transferred to the cyber crime police, records of bank accounts, where the complainants deposited their money, were obtained from various banks and investigation revealed that bank accounts were opened in the name of one Arvinder Singh of Tarn Taran.
Police raided Arvinder’s address and located him, but the photo used in the bank records and SIM registration documents, did not match with his identity.
Through questioning, police realised that Arvinder had also fallen prey to Kamaljeet, who had taken his documents to help him settle abroad.
“On the basis of the photo on the documents, cyber crime police team traced Kamaljeet to Jalandhar on Tuesday. During interrogation, he disclosed that he and his associate, Mandeep Kumar, opened the Sector 34 office using the documents of their customer Arvinder Singh and pasted his own photo on the documents. The documents were forged by Mandeep, who was also nabbed from Jalandhar,” said superintendent of police (SP) Ketan Bansal.
The SP added, “Both accused were now planning to set up a new office at Sri Ganganagar Rajasthan under the name ‘Career Overseas’. For this purpose, they had again used the documents of their clients, Robin and Gurwinder, by affixing Kamaljeet’s photo to open new bank accounts and obtains SIM cards.”
According to police, Mandeep was also facing attempt to murder and Arms Act cases in Punjab.
Lured people through advertisements
The SP said the accused lured people online through advertisements, promising to help them settle in Canada and Australia even if they scored 5.5 bands in IELTS, while at least 6 to 7 bands were required to secure visas for the said countries.
“They used to charge ₹20 to ₹30 lakh from the victims, some of whom also sold their land to help their children move abroad. Both the accused are addicted to online cricket betting and used their clients’ money to place bets. We will now try to recover the money from the accused. We are also investigating if more people, including bank officials, are involved in the racket,” said Bansal.
Investigators said the accused were never actually going to work on any visa applications. They even burnt the passports of all victims and never returned the original academic certificates of the victims.
Beware! Do your due diligence
Police have cautioned people wishing to move abroad to exercise caution before paying any immigration consultancy firm for visa support
All immigration consultancy firms need to inform police within seven days of starting operations and submit their registration number
Applicants approaching such firms for consultancy should enquire about their registration status
The firms also need to mention their registration number in advertisements
Don’t hire firms promising to arrange a visa irrespective of low qualification or document discrepancies
Thoroughly read all documents before signing them
Don’t sign any forms, applications or papers containing doubtful information
Retain copies of documents to be submitted on your behalf
Secure receipts for all payments.