Overview

• Pratik, also known as Abhijeet, Shah was arrested in a raid on a Rander flat and identified by police as an engineer and habitual offender with 12 prior visa and passport fraud cases.
• Officers from the Special Operations Group and Prevention of Crime Branch seized printers, a cutting and embossing setup, a UV torch, and watermark papers along with five fake and eight partially printed visa stickers for the UK, Canada, Macedonia, and Serbia.
• The Surat district court granted a five-day police remand after Shah was produced in court on Tuesday.
• Police say Shah supplied counterfeit visa stickers to travel agents in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Haryana, typically charging between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 per document.
• Investigators have requested data from Indian embassies about travellers intercepted with fake visas, and cite Shah’s admission that he produced and delivered nearly 700 stickers over the past decade.