The Gujarat CID has formed four teams to investigate this case
Ahmedabad:
Police have questioned at least 20 passengers from Gujarat who were on the Nicaragua-bound flight that was returned midway from France, in a bid to uncover a suspected illegal immigration network operating from the state, a senior official said on Friday.
The plane bound for Nicaragua, an Airbus A340 with 276 passengers on board, was stopped in France for four days on suspicion of human smuggling. I landed in Mumbai in the early hours of December 26.
According to a senior official of the state Criminal Investigation Department, these passengers included at least 60 people from Gujarat, who had already reached their native places in the state.
The official said that the ministry is interrogating them to find out whether they have any plans to cross into the United States illegally after arriving in Latin America.
“They were sent back from France. There was a rumor that they planned to enter the United States illegally after arriving in Nicaragua. They told us in their statements that they were going there as tourists. We will go into detail to find out who they are.” The agents are behind their journey,” said SP Rajkumar, Additional Director General of Police, CID – Crime and Railways.
He added that of the 60 who returned, about 20 of them had already been interrogated by the agency.
“We are checking their documents to ascertain whether they used real or fake documents to go to Central America. We will also check their financial transactions because, ideally, they would not have had to pay more if they were going there as ordinary tourists and not with anyone.” Another intention,” said a senior IPS officer.
He added, “Although we started our interrogation, no one revealed facts. They claim that they went there as tourists. We are investigating the case from all angles.”
The CID has formed four teams to investigate the case, Sanjay Kharat, Director of CID (Crime), Police, said on Tuesday.
“The CID (Crime) Department wants to take action against the agents who promised to help the victims to enter the US and other countries (illegally). We have formed four teams that will obtain information from the victims regarding the promises made to them by these agents,” he told reporters.
The charter flight, operated by Romania’s Legend Airlines and bound for Nicaragua, landed in Vatry near Paris on December 21 for a technical stop on its way from Dubai when French police intervened.
The French authorities launched a judicial investigation into the circumstances and purpose of the trip, with a specialized organized crime unit investigating suspected human trafficking.
Nicaragua has become a popular destination for asylum seekers in the United States. As many as 96,917 Indians attempted to enter the US illegally in fiscal year 2023, indicating a 51.61 per cent jump from the previous year, according to data made available by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).
At least 41,770 of these Indians have attempted to enter the United States through the Mexican land border, Customs and Border Protection data show.
Flights to Nicaragua or other countries where travel documents are easier to obtain have become known as “donkey” flights.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
