UP: Three held for visa fraud in Noida

With the arrest of three men, the Noida police on Monday claimed to have busted a gang involved in duping people on pretext of facilitating their foreign travel with document works. The police have seized 15 passports and four forged visa documents from the possession of the gang working as a travel consultants, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Noida Ranvijay Singh said.

With the arrest of three men, the Noida police on Monday claimed to have busted a gang involved in duping people on pretext of facilitating their foreign travel with document works. The police have seized 15 passports and four forged visa documents from the possession of the gang working as a travel consultants, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida) Ranvijay Singh said. ''The gang had floated a company in the name of Om Consultancy, located in Sector 2 here, and they used social media platforms to contact gullibe people wanting to travel abroad,'' Singh told reporters. He said that after trapping people on pretext of facilitating their travel, the gang used editing softwares to forge visas and charged victims Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 for the work. Those arrested have been identified by the police as Ashutosh Pandey, Praveen Kumar Gaur and Imran Khan. ''Two more of their partners have been identified and efforts are on to ensure their arrest soon,'' Singh said. The Noida Phase-1 police station had last week got a complaint about fraud in which a person, who wanted to go to the Middle East, alleged that he was duped of Rs 65,000 by the consultancy. Investigation into the complaint led the police to the racket being run by the gang and 15 passports which belonged to their victims were also recovered, the officer added. The FIR in the case has been lodged under Indian Penal Code sections pertaining to cheating and forgery of documents, among others, the police said.