Two Bangladeshis arrested with forged visas and passports

Two Bangladeshi nationals who tried to travel to Australia using forged visas and passports were arrested by a group of Immigration Department officials at the Arrivals Terminal of the Bandaranaike International Airport, Katunayake yesterday morning (27).

The two Bangladeshis aged 50 and 24 years respectively had arrived from Dubai on SriLankan Airlines Flight UL-226.

When they presented their documents to the Katunayake Airport Immigration and Emigration Department counter to enter Sri Lanka, the officer who was working there had noticed that the visas used in their two passports had been removed illegally.

At that moment, the officer had taken steps to refer the two Bangladesh nationals to the Chief Immigration and Emigration Officer of the airport who referred the documents submitted by the two Bangladeshis to the officers of the Border Checking Unit.

The officials had checked their luggage and found their mobile phones in them, and found the photos of the two Australian visas that had been affixed to their passports.

Subsequent to a further inspection of the luggage, the Immigration and Emigration Department officers found the two fake visas that had been removed a few moments ago. In addition to these, the officials also found two electronic visas that had been hidden in their luggage.

They said that they had done the affixing and saving of these visas on the advice of a Bangladeshi broker, and that they had travelled through several countries and that they had been promised that after returning to Bangladesh, they would be given the necessary visas and air tickets to go to Australia. They also revealed to the Immigration and Emigration Department officials that they had agreed to pay an amount of Rs. 2 million to the Bangladeshi broker.

Further investigations were carried out by Immigration and Emigrations Officers M.M.S.N. Gunasekara and L.G.N. Priyankara under the instructions and supervision of Chief Immigration Officer S.L. Junain.

After confirming that all the documents of these Bangladeshi nationals were forged, the two were handed over to Sri Lankan Airlines officials for deportation to Dhaka, Bangladesh. There had been two air tickets in the luggage of the Bangladeshis to depart from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh on April 5.