Immigration racket busted: Airhostess, 4 others held

Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Crime Branch today said they have busted an illegal immigration racket, in which the accused allegedly used airhostesses to pose as relatives of people wanting to visit the US and fraudulently secure visas for them from the American Consulate in Mumbai.
The Crime Branch has so far arrested a city-based airhostess and four others involved in the racket.
The arrested accused have been identified as Aliah Sayyed Abbas Ali Rizvi (24), Altaf Hassan Shaikh, Rajesh Kumar Trivedi, Yusuf Akram Baig, and Rajesh Ghemlawala.
“Aliah works as an airhostess for an airline, and this makes it easy for her to take one of her relatives to the US on a tourist visa. The kingpin of the racket, Altaf, approached the airhostess and asked her to pose as the wife of Rajesh Trivedi, a computer businessman from Ahmedabad who wanted to visit the US.
They even made a bogus marriage certificate, and bogus documents to show that Aliah and Trivedi owned a shop in Mira Road. We have recovered bogus stamp papers from the accused,” said Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Rakesh Maria.
“According to Altaf, he has used other airhostesses to apply for visas in a similar manner. We have enquired with the US Consulate, and they have informed us that a total of 72 airhostesses have applied for visas to take their relatives to the US this year. Investigations are on, and we are checking which of these relatives failed to return to India, and therefore identify other such cases,” said Maria.
05/12/07 Mumbai Newsline

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Categories: Airports Dec 2007, Foreign Dec 2007