Indian couple travelling on forged passports arrested at BIA
An Indian couple who attempted to fly to the Netherlands on forged passports was arrested by the Border Surveillance Unit of the Immigration and Emigration Department at the Katunayake International Airport.
The couple, both aged 43 years are of Tibetan origin. The male is a resident of Karnataka State and the female is from Uttarakhand State.
Officials said the couple had attempted to use two forged Chinese passports to fly to the Netherlands.
Investigations revealed that they had been staying in Sri Lanka since June 26 on tourist visa and they had planned to fly to Kuwait and from there to the Netherlands.
When they called over at the Al Jazeera Airline counter, the officials on suspicion referred them to the Immigration and Emigration officials who examined their travel documents to find that they had produced forged Chinese passports.
The officials checked the bags and baggage of the couple and found their genuine Indian passports.
Under interrogation they stated that they had paid USD 6,000 to an individual to get the two forged passports.
The couple was handed over to the CID officials in the airport for further investigations.