Delhi: 3 people fall victim to Canada visa scam

Mumbai: Three more people from the city have been conned in a visa scam in a similar fashion to the Bhattacharya couple, whose passports and visa were forged to facilitate illegal entry into Canada. The Delhi Police has already caught a Gujarat-based couple who were allegedly deported after authorities realised the passport and visa they were carrying were fake. They were deported from Bolivia.

An FIR in the case has been registered in Delhi. One of the victims is anchor and event manager Sunaina Singh, the wife of Harmeet Singh of Meet Bros fame. Meanwhile, the Delhi Police has arrested an agent who had allegedly provided fake passports to the Gujarat-based couple.

Speaking to The Asian Age, Sunaina said, early this year, an agent had approached her asking if she would be interested in hosting a show on a cruise ship from the US to Canada. The only prerequisite would be a valid US visa, while and organising company would pay for the Canadian visa application. “The agent after explaining the itinerary over email, came to my house and collected my passport,” she said.

She added that the agent applied for the Canadian visa at VFS with her documents and said he would return it once the visa was processed. “After some weeks, I was contacted by the agent, who informed me that my visa was rejected. When I asked for a rejection letter, he said there was none,” she said.

The same happened to Vishal Kothari, a singer of Indian Idol fame who was also to perform on the said cruise.  A Delhi police team contacted both of them in August asking to verify their passports. “A policeman attached to the IGI Airport in Delhi came to my house and asked for my passport. After going through it he asked me about any recent travel I had undertaken,” said Mr Kothari. He added that when asked, the policeman explained that a couple had been caught and deported back to India for travelling on fake passports. The arrested man was travelling under my name on a fake passport, only the picture on it was not mine,” Mr Kothari added.

A police officer from Indira Gandhi International Airport police station, who is looking into the case, said, “We found clues leading to Gujarat. After that, we found one of the agents, Paragbhai Patel from Surat, who had told the Gujarat couple that he would hand over passports with valid Canadian visas for legal entry in Canada.”

The policeman claimed that Patel had charged a fee of Rs 1 lakh from the couple. Patel is currently under arrest and investigations are ongoing on how he got the Mumbai passports in Surat and also those that had Canadian visas. The police is conducting further investigations on the number of people involved in the scam.

The Asian Age was able to access a copy of the FIR filed by IGI Airport naming one Bhavesh Chaudhari and Gitaben Chaudhari as accused who had been deported from Bolivia. The FIR states they were travelling under passports bearing Kothari and Singh’s names.