New Delhi, August 29
The Delhi Crime Branch arrested two men for their alleged involvement in a scam of cheating four men from Punjab with Portuguese VISAs that turned out to be fake. The accused were caught from a hotel in Mahipalpur during a raid.
The police identified accused as Manjit Singh, and his associates as Balwinder Singh and Mahinder Gandhi.
The police stated that Balwinder and Manjit had taken Rs 12 lakh from four men from Punjab after promising to send them to Portugal, but had provided fake visas to them.
The officials sent the copies of the Visas to the Portuguese embassy for verification and were confirmed to be fake. When the police team raided the hotel, they found Manjeet along with the four men Gurpreet Singh, Ravinder Singh, Satender Singh and Sukhdev Singh. The police said that the passports of the men were examined and it was found that the visas were fake.
According to the police, Sukhdev Singh had contacted Manjit, the latter had claimed that he could get a Portuguese visa for him and had demanded Rs 12 lakh. Sukhdev then allegedly paid an advance of Rs 55,000 to him. He was then told to go to Delhi on January 24, where he met Manjit’s associates Balwinder and Mahinder. They took his passport and assured him that he would receive a Portuguese visa in one to two months.
The officials further added that the complainant then returned to Punjab and transferred more money to them. He had transferred Rs 8 lakh to an account in total and Rs 4 lakh in cash.
The victim were told that the flight would be arranged for August 25 and was told to go to the hotel to meet Manjit for instructions on how to proceed but the scam came to the fore during the raid.
The police have registered an FIR against the accused under IPC sections 420 (cheating/dishonestly inducing delivery of goods), 467 (forgery of security, etc) 468 (forgery for cheating) 471 (using forged document as genuine) as well as section 12 of the Passport Act.