Fake passport racket: VCK cadre, 3 Lankan nationals among 11 held

A team from the fake passport wing was tipped off about fake passports being printed at a travel agency office in Triplicane with the knowledge of its owner, M Veerakumar, who had contested the Assembly election from Sriperumbudur. 

The team arrested Veerakumar (47), his brother M Balasubramanian (45) and their employees, S Karthikeyan (40) and M Saravanan (43). During investigation, police found that they bought unused passports and replaced the photos with that of Sri Lankan nationals to enable them to go abroad.

Based on their inputs, the team also arrested T Suresh (50), A Umar Hussain (45), A Amjathkumar (35) as well as three Sri Lankan nationals – J Balaji (40), J Gunalan (45) and P Krishnamoorthy (47).

As many as 80 Indian passports and 12 fake Sri Lankan passports, a laptop, a hard disk, scanner and printer, and fake seals, fake Indian visa papers and Rs 85,000 in cash were seized from them. All of them were remanded in judicial custody.

Sevvapet police arrested two Bihar youth in possession of fake notes in Rs 2,000 denomination. The accused, Sabeer Alam (21) and Shabeer (20), told police that they reached Chennai only last week after being promised jobs by an unidentified person over phone. They were given fake Rs 2,000 notes to exchange them at shops for real notes. The duo on Sunday changed a note at a milk vendor to pay for soaps purchased from the nearby grocery shop near Sevvapet railway station.

When the vendor’s supervisor found it to be a fake note, they immediately went in search of the youth and found them at the railway station. Later, they were handed over to Sevvapet police.

During the investigation, they revealed to police about the fake note network. Now a hunt is on for the man who gave them the counterfeit notes. A special team has been formed to investigate the case.