NRG held for immigration racket

Ahmedabad: This could well be a Bollywood movie plot an Indian procures passport of a US citizen with similar features and tries his luck to get past stringent checks to a promised land.
However, when three such immigrants were nabbed from Sardar Patel International Airport on November 28, it was a case of luck stretched too far.
Immigration officials on Friday detained US national Pal Patel, along with Prahlad Chaudhary, Rinkal Patel and Hemal Patel living in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad at Doha International Airport in Qatar. They were sent back to Ahmedabad, from where the scam had begun. Pal had used passports of his father, sister and sister-in-law for illegal immigration. According to crime branch officials, immigration sub-inspector CR Parmar deployed at airport investigated the matter when it came to Ahmedabad and found out that the documents furnished for these so-called US citizens were in order. But when they could not answer some basic questions, the officials detained them and informed crime branch officials about the incident.
AV Gakhkhar, inspector of crime branch, investigating the case, told TOI that Pal is a US national since the last 11 years and is a resident of New Jersey. Pal was contacted earlier this year by one Anil Patel, a resident of Gandhinagar district, who told him that the immigration business was quite lucrative.
"Anil Patel told Pal that he would get $5,000 per person if he could arrange for authentic US passports of his relatives to get some persons from Gujarat. Pal agreed and used his family members' passports to get Prahlad Chaudhary, Rinkal Patel and Hemal Patel from Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad. Pal came here to authenticate the entire process," he said.
Crime branch officials added that they are yet to lay hands on the mastermind of the entire racket, Anil Patel.
01/12/08 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Dec 2008, Foreign Dec 2008