UP STF arrests two persons involved in visa racket

Acting on a tip off, STF team arrested two persons Mohd Hasan Abbas of Azamgarh and Maksood Alim of Jaunpur from Naka Police station area yesterday with 19 passports and other documents through which they used to prepare visas for sending people abroad illegally.

Ali was arrested last Saturday from Delhi airport. The UP Anti Terrorist Squad team probing issuance of passport to Ali from here, had said that it had detected gross procedural anomalies both in the Regional Passport office and Local Intelligence Unit.

Abbas and Alim are part of the bigger racket in which the names of several people working in Mumbai, Azamgarh, Jagdishpur, Deoria,  Allahabad, Jaunpur, Gorakhpur, Lucknow and Basti have come to light, police said.

Both the arrested persons told STF that they used to collect passport from people for arranging visas through some travel agency in Mumbai and in turn used to charge Rs 60,000 from each.

Some times they used to arrange one or two genuine visas from travel agencies to win over the trust of their client, otherwise they used to provide fake visas, they said.

While Abbas told police that he got involved in this racket since 2002 after returning from Dubai and Saudi Arabia, Maksood said he got involved in the racket in 2006.

The STF is getting information about the people whose names have been mentioned by both these persons as their partner and active in other parts of the state, police said adding that the case was being register in Naka police station.

Earlier in 2003, the STF had busted a similar racket and recovered 59 fake passports and other documents.