E-Paper
Multi-crore immigration scam busted in Chandigarh: 3 held, 102 passports seized
Police had launched the investigation following a complaint filed by Ashish Sharma, who alleged that he and seven others had been defrauded by Jai Karan Joshi of M/S Golden Overseas, Sector-9, Chandigarh
With six fake immigration offices and a phony medical lab, they tricked over a hundred people and duped them of crores of rupees through false promises of overseas jobs. This elaborate scam has now been exposed with the arrest of three individuals.
The accused have been identified as Jai Karan Joshi, 31, a resident of Chajju Majra, Mohali, who is believed to be the mastermind, Arshad Khan, 24, and Mahipal Singh, 27, both residents of Rajasthan, who ran the fake medical laboratory. They had allegedly been running the scam for the last two to three years.
Police had launched the investigation following a complaint filed by Ashish Sharma, who alleged that he and seven others had been defrauded by Jai Karan Joshi of M/S Golden Overseas, Sector-9. They had paid a total of ₹8,00,000 for visa services that were never provided. The investigation revealed that the accused used advertisements and social media to lure victims, primarily targeting people from other states.
The scam is estimated to have affected over a hundred people, with police recovering 102 passports from the accused. Police had received at least 30 other complaints against Joshi’s firm. The total duped amount is believed to run into several crores. In one case, the accused duped 10 individuals of ₹1 crore, with each person paying ₹10 lakh for promised visa services.
During interrogation, Joshi confessed to defrauding numerous individuals by opening and closing multiple immigration offices over the years. The accused listed his six fraudulent offices: Smart Visa Point, Sector-8 C; Canadian West Consultancy, Sector-8 C; Golden Overseas, Sector-9 D; Golden Overseas, Sector-22 C; Guru Tour and Travel, Sector-20; and World International Tour and Travel, Sector-44.
‘Hired unqualified medical staff’
Further investigations led to the arrest of Arshad Khan and Mahipal Singh, who were running a fake medical lab named M/S Health Care Diagno Lab at SCO No. 23 (2nd floor, Sector-33 D). The lab was used to conduct fake medical examinations for visa applicants, charging ₹6,000 to ₹6,500 per applicant. They hired unqualified individuals to collect blood samples, compromising the health and safety of the applicants. These individuals were paid ₹600-700.
Recovered items from the lab included medical examination receipt books, vials containing blood samples, and approximately 1,600 pre-medical examination reports.
Joshi has been sent to judicial custody, while Khan and Singh are on a two-day police remand.
