There is no let up in cases of immigration fraud and people, who are keen to move abroad, continue to fall prey to corrupt agents and lose lakhs.
On Saturday, police booked seven persons in four separate cases of fraud amounting to ₹20.35 lakh.
In all these cases, the accused had promised to get their clients visas for their respective destinations and demanded hefty amount.
But despite receiving the money, they neither arranged the visas nor returned the amount.
In a case registered at the Model Town police station on the complaint of Dr Ambedkar Nagar resident 28-year-old Ranjna Devi lodged on September 20, police have booked three persons — Balvir Singh of Fatehgarh Sahib, Gurpreet Singh of Patiala (owner of Next Immigration Services) and Ramandeep Kaur, also from Patiala — under Sections 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 24 of the Immigration Act for duping her of ₹3.35 lakh.
Ranjna said she had approached Next Immigration Services in Patiala to get a visa for Canada.
“The accused demanded ₹5.85 lakh from me which I deposited in their account. They later took ₹2 lakh in cash on a promise to arrange my visa,” she told the police.
{{/usCountry}}“The accused demanded ₹5.85 lakh from me which I deposited in their account. They later took ₹2 lakh in cash on a promise to arrange my visa,” she told the police.
{{/usCountry}}“But after taking the amount, the accused informed me that my file was rejected and returned ₹4.5 lakh. However, they refused to return the remaining amount,” she added.
Similarly, Prem Lal, a resident of Kila Raipur village, had on November 2018 lodged a complaint against Amritsar-based WWES Group Consultancy.
The FIR in this case has been registered against Maninderpal Singh of WWES Group at the Dehlon police station for cheating the complainant of ₹6 lakh.
Prem Lal said that the accused had promised to send his son Gurpreet to New Zealand for further studies.
“The accused came to us on October 2, 2016 and convinced us to send my son to New Zealand. He had told me that the entire procedure would cost me ₹27 lakh of which, I will have to deposit ₹6 lakh first and the remaining amount would have be paid after getting the visa,” Prem Lal told the police.
“However, even after two years, the accused has not arranged any visa for my son. I have not got my money back as well,” he added.
In another such case also registered at the Dehlon police station, one Sukhdev Singh of Gurdaspur has been booked for duping Davinder Singh, a resident of Bachhitar Nagar, of ₹5 lakh after promising him a visa for Singapore.
In the fourth case, Dugri police registered an FIR against two persons identified as Promila of Salem Tabri and Ajit Singh of Uttarakhand for cheating the complainant, Manjit Rani, and duping her of ₹6 lakh by promising a visa for Malaysia.