A 40-year-old man from Anand recently found himself on an international ‘you’re not welcome here’ tour, being deported from both the UK and the US within a mere five months, because he tried to sneak around with fake travel documents.
The Delhi Police spilled the beans, revealing that this globe-trotting rule-breaker first landed in the UK back in 2010 with a forged spouse visa – the kind that allows people to live in another country if they’re married to a citizen. His visa expired long ago, but instead of packing his bags, he decided to stick around, working and living illegally. It wasn’t until September 2024 that he was sent packing back to India, proving that sometimes, even the best forged documents can’t keep you from a one-way ticket home.
However, he wasn’t done yet. Upon returning, he reached out to a smuggler from Pakistan and obtained a fake German passport. With this counterfeit document, he tried to enter the US last month but was caught during immigration checks and sent back to India shortly thereafter.
The police report shows that this Indian, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, arrived back in India at IGI Airport on February 2. He was found to be traveling on a fake German passport during routine checks.
It turns out that he had originally left India for the UK on September 23, 2010, using a spouse visa. Even though he was supposed to go back home after his visa expired, he remained in the UK for many years without any legal permission, which eventually led to his deportation.
In an attempt to gain more freedom to travel and stay abroad, he got the fake passport last year, helped by a Pakistani agent named Kabir Khan. Following this advice, he travelled to Germany and Portugal to make it seem like his fake passport was real.
However, his luck ran out on January 30, 2025, when he tried to enter the US from the UK. Customs officials at the New York airport quickly identified the fake passport and denied him entry. They confiscated the counterfeit document and sent him back to India with a travel letter.
When he returned to India, immigration officials discovered his fraudulent activities during standard checks of deportees. A police report has been filed against him for cheating and using forged documents.
Authorities are now working to unravel the network of smugglers who help people forge travel documents. The man is facing serious charges, including passport fraud, forgery, and illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, Indian immigrants to the US witnessed a significant decline last month. A national daily, attributing the latest figures released by the US Customs and Border Protection, has reported that only 3150 Indian nationals were detained at the border, a significant decline from 5625 in December.
Of those detained, between 1000 and 1500 were Gujaratis, a group that has long been linked to a significant number of UN-recorded migrations to the United States. According to the data, 81,792 illegal immigrants were apprehended at the US border in January.
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