Mumbai: Man booked for forging British passport; 2 held for providing fake passport

Mumbai: The Sahar police have registered a criminal offence against a 58-year-old man for allegedly procuring a British passport using illegal means and subsequently travelling to India on it.

The complainant in the case is Pravin Doiphode, an assistant police inspector with the Mumbai police, posted as the immigration officer at the international airport. On Tuesday, when he was at duty, a passenger – who had arrived from the UK – came for an immigration check.

After checking his documents, the immigration officials found something suspicious and made a detailed inquiry with him. The suspect revealed that he obtained the fake British passport in 2007 when he was staying in the UK by submitting bogus documents to an agent.

He then travelled to India thrice on the fake passport between 2007 and 2013.

In 2022, UK security agencies got a whiff of his bogus identity and seized his passport. Later, the accused again got a passport issued from the Indian Embassy and came back to India on Tuesday.

The immigration officials in Mumbai then got a criminal case registered against the accused on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, two people – including a 62-year-old – were arrested on Tuesday by the Mumbai Crime Branch for allegedly making fake passports and visas. 28 passports, 16 visa documents and 414 rubber stamps – all forged – were seized from them.

Both of them were arrested by the Delhi police earlier for the same offences and they came out on bail a month ago. They charged Rs1-5 lakh for making fake travel documents, said the Crime Branch's Deputy Commissioner of Police Prashant Kadam.