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BIA
rocked by human cargo racket Among the passengers was a group of 32 Sri Lankans including six children who posed off as travellers to Maldives. All of them had arrived only with their hand luggage. The passengers passed through the Immigration counter and headed to the waiting area to board their flight. They passed through the unsuspecting immigration officials as they possessed the necessary boarding cards and passports. The requirement of a visa did not arise as Sri Lankans can enter Maldives by obtaining an on-arrival visa. The flight to Maldives eventually took off minus the 32 passengers who were due to board the flight, but strangely no serious inquiry had been made about the 'missing' passengers who had already checked in. The 'missing' passengers by this time were getting ready for the second part of the plan which later turned out to be part of a major human cargo smuggling racket to western destinations. According to the plan they had to wait for another 13 hours to board another Sri Lanka airlines flight to London. Nearly six hours later after the flight took off to Maldives one of the officers of the Special Investigations Unit of the Airport and Aviation was on his routine rounds when he detected two women talking to a Srilankan Airlines ground handling officer who had been assigned to another section. When the SIU officer questioned the other officer he promptly replied he was helping the women to locate the lost luggage. When the alert SIU officer had requested for the boarding card of the two women and checked with the counter, he found their names were not among those who had checked into travel to London. Soon the CID and NIB officials stationed at the Katunayake International Airport were called in and all 32 were arrested. All of them had boarding passes for the London flight, but had obtained them fraudulently leading to an investigation by the CID about the involvement of airline officers involved in the racket of providing the boarding passes. They confessed that they were handed over their boarding passes by an 'agent' after they deliberately missed the flight to Maldives and were waiting in a restaurant in the upper floor of the airport. The 32 would be illegal migrants included young women who were planning to get married in London, those seeking family reunions and others who were seeking employment. All of them, except the children have been remanded as the CID has begun their investigations. The Sri Lankan airlines ground handling officer is in custody while the CID is due to record statements of several other airline officials as part of their investigations which is also being co-ordinated with the British High Commission. The CID has already gathered information that other SriLankan airline staff were involved in the Rs. multi-million racket. The would be illegal immigrants have confessed that each of them paid Rs. 1.6 million for their safe passage to London. The investigations have revealed that all of them had genuine visas stamped by the British High Commission in Colombo, but the passports belonged to other people. The revelation that all of them possessed valid visas also revealed that people were fraudulently obtaining visas from the British High Commission in Colombo on the pretext of travelling to UK, and then selling their passports and visas to third parties. Spokesperson for the British High Commission, Margret Tounge told The Sunday Times that they were closely working with the Sri Lankan authorities to curb these malpractices, but ruled out any internal investigations. The two main agents who are reported to have prepared the arrangements for the departure of the group are absconding. The CID has visited their homes in Kotahena and Slave Island, but have not been able to trace them so far. The detection has not only brought to light a major human smuggling racket, but also the security lapses at BIA. Two days after this racket was busted, another woman who was on her way to France with a forged visa was detected at the Katunayake airport and subsequently the agent himself who tried to smuggle her out of the country was arrested. The police later recovered 96 passports from the agent who had promised the holders that he would get them Italian visas. These incidents came fast on the heels of a Sri Lankan handball team disappearing in Germany and later slipping through to Italy. A German embassy spokesperson in Colombo this week said that they had granted visas to the 23 member team as they had presented an invitation from the respective organisation. The German Sports Exchange programme in Colombo who promoted the team's visit said in future they would not promote such visits. |
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