Gang involved in printing fake Canadian visas busted in Jalandhar, 2 held

The police have busted a gang involved in duping individuals using fake Canadian visas by arresting the two key accused and recovering Rs 26.7 lakh in cash along with five passports from them.

The kingpin of the case is learnt to have been currently based in Turkey and was printing fake tourist visas and visa stickers there, which were then being dispatched to UP and further on to Jalandhar. The racket was busted as Gurnam Singh of Talwandi Bhindra village of Batala in Gurdaspur district lodged a complaint over rejection of his visa with the Jalandhar police.

In his complaint, Gurnam Singh said that he had handed over 25 original passports and money of himself, his relatives and acquaintances for Canadian tourist visas to Santosh Kumar of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. Commissioner of Police Swapan Sharma and his teams found that Santosh Kumar’s real name was Wajid Ali and he was from Barsaini Tola village of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. The second accused arrested in the case is Munish Kumar, a native of Teachers Colony, Balachaur (Nawanshahr) and based in Jalandhar near Patel Chowk.

The Police Commissioner said that payments to the accused were made both in cash and through bank transfers. He said that out of the original passports given for visa applications, Wajid Ali alias Santosh sent 22 passports with visas attached to Gurnam Singh via WhatsApp. The CP said that upon checking, it was found that these visas were fake, and bogus Canada tourist visa stickers were pasted on them.

The CP said that based on FIR No. 98, a case under Sections 406, 420, 465, 467, 468 and 471 of IPC was registered at Division Number 2 police station in Jalandhar. Subsequently, he said that both the accused, Wajid Ali and Munish Kumar, were arrested from Sabzi Mandi, near Dolphin Hotel, Jalandhar. CP Sharma said that further investigations in the case were on and details will be shared later.