Bail guarantee blamed for fake passports racket

The number of Indian expatriates here in the UAE caught using fake Indian passports is on the rise, according to a India’s Consul General in Dubai.

Consul Sanjay Verma told Emirates24|7: “The very fact that more cases are coming to light means that action is being taken and it is being detected. We are trying to create awareness about such misuse and co-operating with officials on ways to identify forged passports,” he said.

Fake passports are increasingly being used to bail out those involved in police cases.

As is the system here, a passport is kept as warranty and someone accused in a case is granted bail.

One legal expert this website spoke to, said the Indian fake passport racket had increased in part because of the use of keeping passports as bail guarantee.

However, according to the Indian mission here, in most cases, stolen passports are used to travel and it is the photo that is most tampered within the passport.

There have been also been cases of non-Indians travelling on fake Indian passports, including the recent arrest of two Sri Lankan nationals by immigration authorities in Dubai.

On Saturday immigration officers in Mangalore, India, arrested a 38-year-old Indian who was travelling from Dubai using a fake travel document.

According to reports police identified the traveller as V Mustafa from Kannur in Kerala. He was travelling using a passport belonging to Arif and confessed to the cops that he had obtained it from an agent for Rs25,000 (about Dh1,923).

According to UAE-based advocate Shamsudeen K, several networks are at work both in the UAE and India to facilitate fake passports.

A fake passport often comes to light in a manner that leaves the original owner in trouble.

Shamsudeen K narrates the case of Babu K from Kerala who travelled on a visit visa about a year ago says his sponsor disappeared soon after collecting his passport for visa stamping. Six months later he went to the Indian consulate and obtained an out-pass (a travel document issued as a temporary replacement for a passport).

“That is when the police told him somebody had forged his passport, replaced his photo and got a residency stamp on it,” says Shamsudeen.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.