South Korean visa racket: Chargesheet filed against five, including two naval officers

MUMBAI: The Mumbai crime branch has filed a 1,500-page chargesheet against five accused, including two Indian navy officials — lieutenant commander Vipin Dagar and sub-lieutenant Brahma Jyoti Sharma — arrested in the South Korean visa racket.
Police officers said that they have cited 40 witnesses, including a woman whose statement was recorded under 164 of CrPC before a magistrate. During the investigation, police were looking to see if there was any terror angle involved but it was ruled out by the official.
Fourteen passports, multiple phones, laptops, sim cards, pen drives, multiple debit cards, documents 108 forged rubber stamps, and a machine used to make rubber stamps were seized as evidence by the arrested accused. Apart from Dagar and Brahmajyoti, the other accused are identified as Deepak Dogra, Simran Teji and Ravi Kumar, all are currently in judicial custody.
Dagar bought the machine from Visakhapatnam to make rubber stamps on the instructions of Sharma. A day before purchasing the day before Sharma was searching online about the machine as well as the shop from which it was bought, which is taken as evidence, as mentioned in the charge sheet.
Being the mastermind, Sharma always tried to avoid his direct involvement in evidence. For example, he used to send Dagar to the consulate to follow up on the applicant’s visa. He did not take money in his bank account and always asked Deepak Dogra to transfer money in the bank account of his woman friend Taji. He even made Teji open a bank account on her mother and grandmother’s names, which was registered on his mobile number, so he could get bank alerts of transactions, said the official.
The Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU), who was probing the case, learnt that the gang members sent unskilled labourers to South Korea and asked them to seek asylum alleging persecution and human rights violations in the ‘conflict-zone’ Jammu and Kashmir. Brahmajyoti Sharma and Dagar were the kingpins of the crime and had been friends since their school days in Jammu and Kashmir, said the police.
The probe revealed that the gang members sent more than 15 persons from J&K to South Korea on tourist visas obtained by submitting forged documents. Each person was charged ₹10 lakh or more. Once they reached the country, the aspirants discarded their passports and sought refuge. They preferred staying there for four to five years as they could easily earn and save between ₹25 to ₹30 lakh which helped them improve their family’s living conditions in India.
The racket was busted in June this year after Dagar visited the Korean consulate to follow up the visa of the applicant, which was rejected and fought with the official in the consulate. The consulate suspected foul play alerted the crime branch which was verified and found out that Dagar had allegedly helped the candidate forge papers which were submitted while applying for a tourist visa. Once the evidence was collected against Dagar, an FIR was registered at the MRA Marg police station against them.