Those involved in the racket that helped people obtain passports with forged documents allegedly devised a structured mechanism for paying their associates, Kolkata Police officers said.

Depending on the work, the amount would vary between ₹2,000 and ₹25,000.

The racket was involved in preparing forged documents for passports, mostly to help Bangladeshis assume false identities to stay in India and then bag a visa to visit European nations, investigations have revealed.

While the alleged masterminds, Manoj Gupta and Samaresh Biswas, made somewhere between ₹2.5 and ₹3 lakh for each passport handed over to clients, the duo had different rates for people who worked for them, police said.

“At every step, beginning with agents and sub-agents, who would get hold of prospective clients looking for Indian passports without valid papers to the final delivery of passports, there appears to be a well-oiled machinery in place with a fixed rate chart,” a senior police officer said.

Some contractual workers at the Passport Seva Kendras attached to post offices, allegedly part of the racket, received between ₹2,000 and ₹3,000 for uploading documents for a passport applicant, the police said.

Two such contractual workers have been arrested by the special investigation team of Kolkata Police probing the passport racket.

The special investigation team has arrested 10 persons allegedly involved with this racket, including Abdul Hai, a retired sub-inspector of
Kolkata Police.

Abdul worked for three years with the Security Control Organisation (SCO) of the city police and was arrested from his house in Habra in North 24-Parganas last week.

The SCO is responsible for, among several other things, enquiring about those who have applied for passports with the regional passport office (RPO) and reside within the jurisdiction of Kolkata Police.

Investigators said the alleged kingpins of the racket, Gupta and Biswas, used to pay ₹25,000 to Hai for processing a passport application without proper inquiry and adequate verification.

Both Gupta and Biswas have been arrested.

More than ₹12.5 lakh has been found in Hai’s bank account, which police said was allegedly earned as bribes for approving passport applications with forged documents.

“Hai appears to have received most of his payments from Biswas, who lived in Barasat, around 24km from the retired officer’s house in Habra. We are trying to establish the details of the money chain,” the officer said.

Investigations about alleged payoffs have revealed that kingpins would pay between ₹2,500 and ₹4,000 to agents and sub-agents for bringing candidates looking for Indian passports.

Those who help prepare fake Aadhaar cards and other identity documents would receive payments between ₹6,000 and ₹7,000.

Officers said that the Aadhaar number would be original, but the name and photograph on the card would be of another person.

More than 200 such cases have been found within the jurisdiction of Kolkata Police.

The applications in all the cases were cleared without proper verification of the identity documents.