Alpesh Patel, a resident of New Jersey in the US and a native of Anand district, was caught at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International (SVPI) airport with the passport of another man on his arrival last week.
According to an FIR registered with the police, Patel, 43, reached the SVPI airport on a flight from Dubai and went for immigration clearance. Patel has been living in the US for the past 24 years and runs a grocery store, a police officer said.
According to the FIR filed by immigration officer Darshil Shah, when Patel presented his passport during the immigration clearance process, the system displayed information belonging to one Mohammed Masrur. “Further checks using the PRIDE (passport-related information data exchange) system confirmed that the passport had been reported as lost,” the FIR said.
According to the complaint, the passport was issued to Mohammed Masrur, a resident of Saifullaganj in Sultanpur district of UP, on July 7, 2022. “Hence prima facie it can be inferred that Alpesh Patel has presented a fraudulently obtained Indian passport to the officer for immigration clearance. He has been handed over to the police for further investigation,” the complaint states.
Airport police registered a complaint of cheating by personation, forgery, forgery of valuable security and using a forged document as genuine under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) along with the charges of the Passport Act.
Police said that Patel’s passport first expired in 2010, and he subsequently renewed it. However, when it expired again in 2022, he sought the help of an agent originally from Gujarat but residing in New York. This agent provided Patel with a passport that had already been reported as stolen.
“Patel’s new passport that was supplied by the agent belonged to one Mohammed Masrur according to our centralized database and reported as “lost” on the Passport Related Information Data Exchange (PRIDE ),” the Airport police official added. The Special Operations Group (SOG) of the city crime branch will probe the case.
