American dream interrupted

June 29, 2010

Delhi Police arrests International gang of human traffickers


Living the American Dream isn't easy, especially if you come from a different part of the world. But if you are prepared to shell out a few lakhs, help is around. For human trafficking is big business in India.

The Delhi police claims to have solved 100 cases of human smuggling with the arrest of three travel agents on Monday. The anti-extortion cell of the crime branch nabbed Manoj Pandey (35), Jitender Mohan (49) and Mohan Kala (46) from Barakhamba Road in central Delhi.


"We had received information that some travel agents from Delhi and Punjab were involved in trafficking of Indian and Nepalese nationals to the US through Latin American countries like Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala by using forged documents. They were charging Rs 25-30 lakh from each person. We conducted a series of raids and arrested Manoj, Jitender and Mohan from the Barakhamba Road area," said a police officer.

"Manoj Pandey was running his travel agency with the name of Sprite Tours and Travels from Inder Prakash Building at Barakhamba Road. Pandey hails from Bihar and is a graduate from Allahabad University. Jitender Mohan was running an office by the name of J M Tours and Travels from Prakash Deep Building on Tolstoy Marg. Mohan Lal is their accomplice; his family is settled in London," the officer added

The accused were well aware of visa norms in Latin American countries. They took advantage of the loopholes with the help of forged documents and had so far sent at least 100 people illegally to the US and Malaysia.

"In Latin American countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador etc. there is a facility of Visa on Arrival.

The culprits would send their clients to these countries first and would then take local help and traffic clients to the US through the Mexico border. They usually targeted Indian and Nepalese nationals. They also sent people to Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore by using tampered visas of different people. We have recovered 152 fake and tampered passports, 4 computers and 2.89 lakh rupees in cash from the accused," the officer concluded.

NOT WELCOME

The United States has placed India on its second worst category on human trafficking for the seventh consecutive year in 2010, saying the latter has done significant work on sex trafficking, but not enough to check labour trafficking.

"The government of India does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking," said the US State Department in its 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report.

The report places 13 countries including Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on its worst 'Tier 3' countries list not doing anything to fight the 'phenomenon of modern slavery' as Senator HillarClinton put it.