Bengaluru: The Central Crime Branch sleuths are probing the involvement of three city-based travel agencies, for their alleged involvement in a fake visa scam. The investigations are being carried out based on the complaint filed by the consulate of British High Commission, Chennai, which unearthed a scam involving agents procuring fake documents and supplying counterfeit immigration stamps to support their customers’ visa applications to countries including the UK.
The scam came to light a few months ago after eight people applied for UK visas using passports with fake immigration stamps. The agents advised the applicants to get the stamps to show that they were well traveled and to hide the fact that they had violated the rules of their previous UK visas. A release from British High Commission stated that UK visa officials who are trained in forgery detection found fake stamps in the passports and found that all the eight applicants had availed new passports after claiming that their old passports were ‘lost’ and by proving false information required by the passport authorities, the new passports processed, the release of the British High Commission said.
