Mumbai: Sahar police arrested 20 agents from Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh for allegedly running a racket that provided passports using forged documents to Indian, Bangladeshi and Afghan nationals between March 2025 and Feb 2026, leading to a sharp dip in cases registered. Police said adding the name of the agent in an FIR is a deterrent, which was not the case earlier. The dip could also be because agents might have become alert and chosen airports other than Mumbai to send passengers overseas, the officials added.In the first seven months of 2026, Sahar police registered 37 cases, compared with 376 between Jan and June 2025 and 220 between July and Dec 2025. The police report showed that one-third of the 4,229 total crime FIRs registered between 2022 and 2026 till Aug 10 related to passport forgery, accounting for 1,459 cases.There are agents who arrange passports after collecting fees of Rs 2 lakh. “People sell their property, land or even take loans to pay agent fees. There is another scheme where the agents offer ‘free or low-upfront-cost placement packages, telling candidates to pay a small advance payment ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 and the rest from their salaries once they start working abroad,’” said a police officer.In June 2025, an agent, Sameer Lakhani, was arrested at Mumbai International Airport after he allegedly switched his identity using a fake Indian passport. His arrest led immigration officials and Sahar police to find he held three passports: British, Indian and Portuguese. Lakhani had allegedly turned to an agent in 2015 after his UK visa application was rejected in 2008.In Feb this year, Sahar police arrested passport agent Roshan Dudhwadkar who had allegedly facilitated illegal transport of about 80 people, primarily from other parts of the country, to Canada, the Netherlands, Turkey and Poland over the past three years. He charged Rs 50 lakh from each person to provide fake passports and visas for specific destinations.DCP (West Zone-1) Nimit Goyal said the case is registered and action initiated based on passengers caught with a fake visa and passport by immigration officials. “We are trying to track the middleman. We have often managed to nab the agents but there are still loopholes due to which agents are involved in the activities, mostly in Punjab and the northern part of India. The team try their best to nab the agents,” said Goyal. Sahar police senior inspector Manoj Chalke said seized passports were sent to the regional passport office from where they were issued to check. “Fake visas found on passports were sent to an agency in Nashik to verify the forged security features. The passport obtained using forged documents is destroyed on court orders,” he said.Mumbai-based advocate Prabhakar Tripathi said, “Agents exploit people who are financially vulnerable and desperate to build a better life abroad. They are not merely paying a travel fee but use their savings, jewellery, agricultural land and even mortgage their homes to pay agent fees and end up in jail after being caught with a forged passport or visa.”A Mangaluru resident who was in a financial crisis was promised a job abroad by an agent in 2005. She borrowed money and even pledged her jewellery and paid Rs 50,000 to the agent, and was sent to Canada on a fake passport. The agent disappeared after she was caught. Ultimately, after spending 13 years in Canada, she was deported.In 2017, four Sri Lankan nationals were caught at Mumbai airport after each of them Rs 20 lakh to agents to reach the UK and build a better future. Their families said they raised money by mortgaging their homes and land. They lost their homes and land because they could not repay the money raised for the journey.In Oct 2017, said Tripathi, “A man sold his ancestral one-and-a-half bigha agricultural land to arrange the money required for the promised employment in Qatar. He was caught at Mumbai airport for holding fake visa.”In another disturbing case, a Jalandhar girl was just 19 years old when she was arrested by Sahar police. Her family mortgaged their home to pay agents’ fees for a job in Qatar. The family subsequently lost the mortgaged house and now resides in a makeshift hut.
