CBI arrests former embassy officials among six in visa fraud case

New Delhi, December 16: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday registered a case against two former embassy officials among six on the allegation of visa fraud in the embassy. 

The two former officials were employees of Visa Department of the Embassy of France in New Delhi. 

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The arrested has been identified as Shubham Shokeen, Aarti Mandal, Navjot Singh, Chetan Sharma, Satwinder Singh Purewal, Manpreet Singh and others. Shubham and Aarti worked in the Visa Department of the Embassy of France in New Delhi.

As per the sources, accused has prepared fraud list during the period from January 1, 2022 till May 6, 2022.

Moreover, it was also alleged that the applicants were from Punjab and Jammu who submitted the fake and forged letters purportedly written by a private company based at Bengaluru to the Consulate General of France, Bengaluru for issuing Entry Visas, for their joining private companies in Port-Le-Havre, France.

On being approached by the applicants the said two officials in the Visa Department of the Embassy allegedly issued Entry Visas in favour of three other accused after taking illegal gratification of Rs 50,000 per Visa, without the knowledge and approval of the Head of Visa Department, Embassy of France, New Delhi. It was also alleged that after the issuance of the Entry Visa, the said two officials displaced/destroyed the documents/files from the Visa Department.

During the period of five months, several files were allegedly handled by these accused which mostly pertain to young farmers or unemployed people from Punjab who had not earlier travelled. It was further alleged that during the said period, the accused had perpetrated fraud of a huge amount in the Visa Department of the Embassy.   

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Meanwhile, CBI also conducted searches at six locations including Delhi, Patiala, Gurdaspur and Jammu at the premises of the accused. Incriminating documents/articles including laptops, mobile phones, suspicious passports etc were recovered so far.

The investigation is still underway.