(MENAFN- IANS) Kolkata, Jan 11 (IANS) The investigating officials of Kolkata Police and other agencies investigating the rackets involved in arranging fake Indian identity documents including fake Indian passports for illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators have come across several hired bank accounts which were used to pay the application money for the fake papers.
Sources aware of the development said that there had been many cases where one bank account was used to pay the application money for more than one fake passport.
These hired accounts, sources added, were mainly held by the sub-agents of these rackets in the villages adjacent to the state's international borders with Bangladesh and whose task was mainly in identifying illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators crossing over to the Indian side through the porous borders in the region.
Sources said that besides receiving commissions for arranging prospective clients from the racket kingpins, these sub-agents also used to receive commission for getting their accounts used for making the payment of application money for new passport applications.
The modus operandi was that first the application money was transferred to the hired accounts online and within an hour the same amount was used for making the payment of application money for the new passport application.
Once that process is completed, the account holder was paid the commission in cash, which is generally between five to 10 per cent of the application money.
Sources said that there had been cases also where bank accounts were opened in the names of the applicants using forged documents.
The investigating officials have identified a pattern in the operations of such rackets engaged in arranging fake Indian passports for the illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Any infiltrator illegally crossing over to Indian territory, contacting the local agents and showing willingness to pay out hefty amounts for getting fake Indian identity documents are first provided with safe shelters at the different villages adjacent to the borders with Bangladesh in the state, both land and coastal.
Thereafter, the agents arrange for fake ration cards for them, which are the first step to making other identity documents.
By virtue of the fake ration cards, other identification documents like EPIC, PAN, and Aadhaar cards are acquired.
The last step is getting the fake passports on the basis of these other fake identity documents.
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