Duped, 3 Punjabis held with fake visas at Delhi airport

In a stunning case of fraud, three men from Punjab were given fake air tickets and forged Schengen visas and brought all the way to Delhi’s IGI airport even though the mastermind behind their promised journey to Spain had already been arrested by the Punjab Police days earlier.

The three passengers — Harjit Singh (44), Bhagwant Singh (25), and Gurcharan Singh (28) — all from villages in Amritsar’s Ajnala area, were intercepted by airline staff on May 29 while trying to board a flight to Madrid.

The trio paid lakhs to what they believed was a genuine travel network. What they didn’t know was that Sonu Walia, the alleged mastermind and the man who had promised them waiter jobs in Madrid, was already lodged in a Punjab jail. And the agent who accompanied them, Kamaldeep Singh, knew it but didn’t tell them.

“He deliberately hid the news of Walia’s arrest from the passengers because he feared they might back out of the plan,” a Delhi Police officer said.

Kamaldeep, who has been arrested, had allegedly been working with Walia on a commission basis, scouting for people desperate to go abroad. He found the three men, promised them jobs at a hotel in Madrid (reportedly owned by Walia’s cousin), and helped collect Rs 17 lakh from them. With their money pocketed and Walia already behind bars, Kamaldeep still chose to push ahead with the illegal plan.

The scam was exposed when the trio presented their tickets at the Indigo Airlines counter at the IGI airport. The tickets couldn’t be found in the airline's system, prompting staff to alert the airport authorities. When Swiss liaison officers examined their Schengen visas, they were found to be fake, lacking basic security features.

All three passengers were detained and later arrested by the airport police under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Passport Act. During interrogation, they revealed Kamaldeep’s involvement, who had by then gone into hiding.

After a 300-km chase involving local intelligence and technical surveillance, Kamaldeep was finally apprehended from Kurukshetra, Haryana.

The investigation is ongoing. The Delhi Police are now in the process of formally arresting Walia, who is currently lodged in Gurdaspur Jail. They are working to identify other agents in the network. Bank accounts are being scrutinised, and efforts are underway to trace the source of the forged visas, the police officer added.