‘Human trafficking’ case: CID arrested eight agents in crackdown that began a week before flight was grounded in France

According to CID officers, many of the passengers have claimed that they were travelling to Nicaragua as tourists. “The passengers maintain that they were travelling to Nicaragua for sight-seeing. They had valid documents to procure visa on arrival and some even had tourist visas, so one cannot question that. However, they are unable to explain why they boarded a chartered, dubious flight that had mostly single persons and unaccompanied minors instead of commercial flights,” said an officer.

“…They are also cannot explain why they paid their agents huge sums of money, like Rs 8 lakh, to board the flight… Many of these passengers hail from a poor financial background, which does not sit with their explanation of going for a vacation in Nicaragua.”

Officers had on Friday said that the passengers have named at least two local agents, who might have charged Rs 50 lakh and above per person to take them to the US via Mexico. They also learnt that some of the Gujaratis in the group were already working in menial jobs in the UAE, from where they had boarded the flight.

The officer said that some of the 21 passengers have named local agents, who were liasoning with operators who execute donkey flights and coordinate the infiltration from the Mexico borders. “Many agents were involved, not all were directly known to all passengers.”

He added: “They said they were to reach Mexico within a couple of days from Nicaragua and thereafter attempt the crossover from Tijuana (in Mexico). Although expensive, they chose the Nicaragua route to avoid the dangerous isthmus route that takes about three days to cross on foot… through mud and jungles infested with robbers…” However, as of now, no case can be made out against the agents unless there is evidence of forged documents or a passenger comes forward to file a complaint, the officer said.

Since December 15, the CID has arrested at least eight of the 15 immigration agents booked in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar zones in a crackdown against agencies involved in facilitating illegal migration of Gujaratis to foreign destinations, especially US, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

The crackdown began just a week before the Legend Airlines flight was grounded at Vatry airport in France. The CID is also probing 11 other agencies allegedly involved in facilitating illegal migration.

Although the CID has said that the raids began as a “proactive operation” following complaints of forged documents being used to seek immigration passage to foreign countries, sources in the Gujarat Police said that at least two of the eight agents raided since December 15 are also involved in facilitating the travel of some passengers on board the Legend Airline flight.

Additional Director General of Police (CID) Rajkumar Pandian told The Indian Express, “The raids were conducted on receiving complaints (from institutions) that several forged marksheets have been found. We raided 17 suspected places and booked six persons. We have 11 other immigration firms under scanner. Their software and documents have been seized and handed over to the forensic science laboratory for scrutiny.”

“We have received a clone of the documents that need to be verified… it is a time-consuming task… However, when we are able to ascertain the fake documents, we will immediately book those found to be involved in the activity,” he added.

On Friday, the CID officers also began a scrutiny and verification of passports and documents gathered from the 21 Gujarati passengers to ascertain if the documents had been forged to facilitate their travel. Investigators have sought help from the regional passport offices to physically verify the 21 passports, said officers.

The CID said that none of the 21 passengers, who have returned so far, are minors. It has, meanwhile, begun fetching details of other passengers on board the Legend Airlines flight and those allegedly waiting for their turn to board another flight to a central America destination from UAE.

Modus operandi

# Most of the travellers are from villages/towns, where people have previously taken the donkey routes to reach the preferred destination, especially the US.

# Encouraged by success stories, they get in touch with agents.

# They pay the agent about 15% of the money in advance to process paperwork and forge documents if needed.

# Second installment of about 10% is paid on acquiring visa and booking tickets.

# The remaining money is promised to be paid on successful entry into the desired country.

# The traveller assembles at the common point.

# Once the traveller lands in the intermediate country, he/she is chaperoned by another agent, may be from another nationality.

# The agent then facilitates the move to Mexico/Colombia or direct entry to the US from Canada.

# If the traveller successfully crosses over to the US, the rest of the money is paid to the agent back in India.