Ahmedabad man booked for human trafficking

A 74-year-old man from Ahmedabad has been booked for human trafficking after attempting to illegally traffic three people to the UK using forged work experience certificates. The man was caught at Mumbai's international airport.

MUMBAI: A 74-year-old man from Ahmedabad was booked for illegally trying to traffic three people to the United Kingdom (UK), by using forged work experience certificates. The accused, Chittaranjan Dave, was at the immigration counter of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) on Friday before taking an early morning flight to Mauritius.

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The immigration officer realised that a lookout notice stating that the accused was a suspected human trafficker had been issued.

During the questioning, the immigration officials learnt that since 2016, Dave had helped at least fifteen people from Gujarat immigrate to different European countries. “We also went through his phone where we got concrete evidence about his involvement in human trafficking. One WhatsApp chat openly spoke about him helping people go to Europe through fake job experience certificates,” an immigration officer told the police.

All these emigrants, he added, were shown to be employees of a firm called Nirbhay Impex, but the candidates were to apply for jobs based on these documents in the UK. The phone also had pictures and tickets of three people whom Dave had helped immigrate in August this year.

“Based on the evidence found on his phone, we have booked the accused for human trafficking under section 370 of the Indian Penal Code,” said an official from Sahar police.