Gujarat passengers on 'Dunki' flight offered Rs 60-80 lakh to agents to enter US illegally

More than 60 people from Gujarat on board the Nicaragua-bound plane, which was sent back from France over suspected human trafficking, had agreed to pay Rs 60 lakh to Rs 80 lakh to agents to enter the US illegally, news agency PTI reported citing officials.

Last month, a Nicaragua-bound charter flight, with 303 Indian passengers on board, was grounded in France over suspected "human trafficking". The flight landed in Mumbai on December 26 with 276 Indian passengers as 27 of them decided to stay back in France.

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The flight that returned to Mumbai included 66 passengers from Gujarat. During the investigation, they reportedly admitted that they agreed to pay Rs 60 lakh to Rs 80 lakh to the local immigration agents to enter the US illegally.

These 66 Gujarat natives, including some minors, were mainly from Mehsana, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, and Anand districts, said Superintendent of Police, CID- Crime and Railways, Sanjay Kharat, who is investigating the case.

Kharat said the police had already questioned 55 of them and recorded their statements. "Majority of them have studied till Class 8 to 12. Each of them admitted that they had agreed to pay Rs 60 lakh to Rs 80 lakh to the local immigration agents to help them cross into the US illegally after reaching Nicaragua via Dubai," he was quoted as saying by PTI.

Also read: France grounds Nicaragua-bound flight carrying over 300 Indians over suspected human trafficking

The state CID has got the information of 15 agents, who had promised to help these 55 persons enter the US illegally through the US-Mexico border. The SP said these agents had asked these 55 persons to pay the money only after reaching the US. The agents, he said, had told the passengers that their men would take them to the US border from Nicaragua and then help them cross the border. "It was also revealed that the agents had also booked air tickets for these passengers and gave USD 1,000 to 3,000 to each passenger to deal with any emergency situation."

These 66 passengers reached Dubai from Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Delhi between December 10 and 20. They boarded the Nicaragua-bound flight of a private airline at the Fujairah International Airport on December 21, the report said citing a release issued by the CID.

The CID has written a letter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to help it collect more information about the agents who had acquired Dubai visa of these 55 passengers, bank details of agents who had paid the visa fee from their account, how the agents managed to acquire visa of Nicaragua from Dubai and who booked the flight from Dubai and paid money for the tickets of passengers.

The chartered flight, which was operated by Romanian charter company Legend Airlines and bound for Nicaragua, landed at Vatry near Paris on December 21 for a technical stopover en route from Dubai when the French police intervened.

French authorities launched a judicial investigation into the conditions and purpose of the trip, with a unit specialising in organised crime investigating suspected human trafficking.

Nicaragua has become a popular destination for those seeking asylum in the US. As many as 96,917 Indians attempted to enter the US illegally in the financial year 2023, according to data from the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). Flights to third countries where obtaining travel documents is easy are known as 'dunki' flights.

(With inputs from PTI)