Two women from North Gujarat were arrested at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in New Delhi on January 23 while attempting to board flights to Canada using stolen passports. The incident has revealed a human smuggling racket involving “lookalike” passports, which are used to bypass airport security checks.
According to media reports, the women were planning to stay in Canada before finding a route to settle in the United States. This attempt is believed to be part of a larger effort to evade US immigration crackdowns under former President Donald Trump’s administration.
At the airport, immigration officers intercepted two women before they could board their flights to Toronto. The first woman, a 21-year-old from Mehsana, was found to be using a passport belonging to a Mumbai-based artist.
Initially, she claimed to be from Mumbai and travelling with legal documents. However, after further scrutiny, officials discovered her true identity as a resident of Gujarat. The passport she was carrying was found to be stolen.
During interrogation, the woman admitted to obtaining the passport from human smugglers operating near the airport. She identified two agents involved in the fraud as Monu from Delhi and another Bhavesh Mama. The smugglers had provided her with a passport containing a valid Canadian visa stamp.
The second woman, a 32-year-old from Gandhinagar, was caught attempting to board a flight using a passport belonging to a hockey player from Ludhiana, Punjab. During her interrogation, she revealed that she had received the passport from a smuggler named Jasdeep Tiger, a resident of Shahbad, Delhi.
Investigations revealed that the passport, with a valid Canadian visa, had been handed over to her just outside the airport. She had already obtained a boarding pass for her flight when the fraud was discovered.
Police suspect that this case is part of a larger smuggling operation in which human traffickers supply stolen or forged passports to individuals seeking to travel abroad.
The key to the scam is the close resemblance between the passport holder and the person using the stolen documents, which allows them to pass security checks undetected.
Both women have been booked under charges of cheating and forgery, in accordance with the provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Passport Act. IGI Airport police have initiated a detailed investigation to uncover the full extent of the smuggling network.
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