Eight persons, including a woman immigration official involved in human trafficking racket, were caught by the Cyberabad police on Monday. The police seized passports and forged tourists visas and other documents from them.
The accused - Tetali Subbi Reddy, 60, a travel agent of Bengaluru, Yeddula Shankar, 42, Thotah Kanteshwara, 22, from Kadapa district, Mudidana David Raju, 38, of West Godavari, Jakkamshetti Venkateshwar Rao, 30, of East Godavari, Syed Iliyaz, 25, customer service agent of Jet Airways from Anantapur (all hailing from Andhra Pradesh), Debora Dommara, immigration official at RGI Airport, 40, of Nalgonda, and Sabja Hussain of Nizamabad, helped illiterate women clear immigration check.
Generally illiterate or semi-literate job aspirants whose qualification is below matriculation are required to obtain a certificate from Protector of Emigrants (PoE) before applying for Emigration Check Required (ECR) clearance. PoE certificates are issued only after the employer deposits a few lakhs of rupees as caution deposit and executes a bond taking full responsibility of the employee. Moreover, women aged below 30 years are not allowed to go on employment visas to work as domestic helps.
“To avoid the lengthy process of obtaining a PoE certificate, the agents obtained employment visas from the employers in Gulf countries. But they handed over a forged tourist visa to the candidate. The woman immigration official cleared the passengers holding fake PoE certificates and tourists visas,” A.R. Srinivas, DCP Shamshabad, explained.
Once, the candidates land at the airports in the Gulf, they tear the tourist’s visas and throw them in trash cans. Later, while checking out of the airports, they present the employment visas and make their exit.
Syed Iliyaz collected Rs. 3,000 for each candidate for issuing boarding pass while J. Venkateshwar, who is a supervisor at a coffee shop at RGI Airport, acted as mediator for Ilyas and Debora.
The police said that they are writing to the government to increase the scrutiny of tourist visas also.
