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Man breaks down in tears at airport after discovering his visa and ticket are fake: ‘How will I repay people’

A victim of an immigration fraud scheme broke down in tears at a Bangladesh airport after discovering his visa and ticket were fake.

Updated on: Mar 09, 2026 8:37 AM IST
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A victim of an immigration fraud scheme broke down in tears at a Bangladesh airport after discovering his visa and ticket were fake. Mohammad Babul Hossain was filmed crying at Dhaka airport after being told that his paperwork for a supposed trip to Thailand was not authentic.

Mohammad Babul Hossain, a tailor from Bangladesh, broke down after discovering the scam
Mohammad Babul Hossain, a tailor from Bangladesh, broke down after discovering the scam

The victim

According to a report in Ajker Patrika, Mohammad Babul Hossain, also known as Jamal, is a 35-year-old tailor. A resident of Balia Bhada village of Manikganj, Bangladesh, he had dreams of going abroad for a better life.

Hossain ran a small tailoring shop through which he struggled to support his family. Since 2020, he had been saving money to go abroad, where he hoped to build a better life for himself and his family.

Multiple cases of fraud

Unfortunately, Hossain was defrauded several times in his attempts to go abroad. The first was in 2021, when he paid around 250,000 taka ( 1.8 lakh) to one person who promised to send him abroad. Nothing came of the promise and he lost the money. (Also read: ‘I got robbed in Asia’s scam city’: Man forces Australian to take toy in Delhi, walks away with his money)

Later, he paid another 50,000 taka to another man, hoping to reach Saudi Arabia. He did not get a visa.

In 2024, the Bangladeshi man signed a contract with an agency for 750,000 taka to go to Belarus. He paid 30,000 taka ( 22,000 approximately) in installments. This, too, turned out to be a fraud — and he has still not recovered the full amount he paid.

Fake visa scam

Hossain later came in contact with a person named “Sohel” through a YouTube channel. Sohel claimed to know a person named Afridi, who runs a company called BD Food in Thailand. He told Hossain that he could get him a job at BD Food with a salary of 50,000 taka per month.

Believing his promise, Hossain sent Sohel 360,000 taka ( 2.7 lakh).

“I sent a total of 360,000 taka to Afridi through bKash, Nagad and Hundi. Later, they sent visa, plane tickets and job papers. The flight was scheduled for 2 am on Sunday. But when I entered the airport, I found out that all the papers were fake,” he told Ajker Patrika.

Hossain had borrowed money from people and sold shop goods to raise the money for his supposed Thailand job. The tailor is now anxious about how he will repay the loans.

“I don't know how to repay people. Everyone in the area knows I'm going abroad. Now I don't even have the courage to return home,” he said.

(Also read: ' 1 lakh for 3 IV drips': Indian woman shares 'hospital scam' experience in Thailand)

  • Sanya Jain
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Sanya Jain

    Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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