The Narmada district police arrested five more immigration agents in the alleged case of fake certificates and mark sheets busted last week, in which three persons, including a 30-year-old woman mastermind from Delhi have been arrested so far.
The accused allegedly forged documents of about 35 universities across India to help individuals apply to foreign universities and even created fake websites to route the verification of these fake certificates to their own agents.
Following the arrest of a technology professional Bauli Nand Rev from Delhi last week, the Narmada Special Investigation Team (SIT) had also arrested two accused Varun Shah from Delhi and Pranav Jani from Ahmedabad — both immigration consultants.
On Sunday, the SIT nabbed five more immigration agents identified as Arnav Gupta from Ahmedabad, Bhargav Goswami from Surat, Dipesh Barot from Kalol, Rohit Patel from Mehsana, and Rishikesh Purohit from Vadodara, for their alleged involvement in the racket.
According to Deputy Superintendent of Police Vani Doodhat, the immigration consultants, in order to facilitate fake marksheets for students aspiring to go abroad, contacted the accused, who in turn also created fake websites of the university concerned so that the email for verification of the fake marksheet could land with the accused and the marksheet would be verified.
The SIT has been probing the racket spread across the country.
The Narmada district police busted the racket on January 25 following a complaint from the Registrar of Birsa Munda Tribal University in the district on December 10, 2021.
The registrar of Birsa Munda University filed a complaint at the Rajpipla police station stating that the university had received a fake certificate for verification, which had been created through a fake website of the university.
Police said that most of the certificates sold were ‘back dated’ and they charged a hefty price of upto Rs 3 lakhs for a fake Ph.D certificate. Police have recovered 237 degree certificates, over 500 marksheets, and 94 rubber stamps from the accused.
The accused has been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections for forgery (465), forgery of a valuable security (467), forgery for purpose of cheating (468), fraudulently and dishonestly using as genuine any document or electronic record that is known to be forged (471), and defamation (500) as well as relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.