2nd Navy officer held for Korean visa racket, suspected to be kingpin

MUMBAI: Mumbai police crime branch probing human smuggling to South Korea has arrested a second naval officer and suspected kingpin of the racket, Sub-Lt Braham Jyoti (29), along with a 26-year-old woman, Simran Teji, who ran a company through which she would allegedly send people abroad using forged documents.
The racket came to light following a complaint against a Navy officer from South Korea’s consulate in Mumbai.Police said many of the applicants, mostly from J&K, have travelled to S Korea, destroyed their documents, including passports and visas, and have sought asylum. A police team is working on identifying them.
A police note said the first officer arrested, Lt Commander Vipin Dagar (28), would prepare forged documents, forward them to the South Korean consulate in Mumbai and visit it on Jyoti’s instructions. Both officers were posted in Western Naval Command, which has its headquarters in Mumbai.
Two others, Ravi Kumar and Deepak Dogra, have been arrested from J&K and are being brought to Mumbai, police said. Police said Kumar wanted to leave for South Korea on a visa acquired through forged documents, while Dogra appears to have been monitoring the overall operation and identifying potential targets.
All arrested accused have been sent to police custody till July 5. They have been booked for cheating, forgery, breach of trust, and criminal conspiracy under IPC as well as relevant sections under Passport Act.
Police have seized 14 passports, documents of four fictitious companies, fake rubber stamps, stamp papers, various certificates, and three bank accounts with a balance of a little over Rs 2 crore. An examination of Jyoti’s bank account showed that he had accumulated Rs 1.6 crore in the last eight years, which was beyond his known sources of income.
Investigations showed that the gang would entice people seeking opportunities abroad, particularly in South Korea, to apply for visas even if they were ineligible. The two naval officers would visit the consulate in Mumbai in uniform, claiming to be close relatives of the applicants, to ensure that certain discrepancies were overlooked, said police. They even forced the consulate employees to expedite visa applications, they added.
Police said Teji (26) had established a fictitious company, Tosha International, through which she would send people abroad.