Four people arrested for attempting to travel to Poland from Katunayake on fake visas

Four Sri Lankans who attempted to use fake visas to illegally travel to Poland have been arrested at Katunayake Bandaranaike International Airport. They were arrested by immigration officials this morning (06) while arriving in the country from New Delhi, India.

The Department of Immigration and Emigration states that among those arrested are a 22-year-old married couple residing in the Negombo area, a 28-year-old individual residing in the Wellampitiya area of Colombo, and a 45-year-old individual residing in the Karewathi area of Jaffna.

It is reported that these individuals had paid brokers 6.4 million rupees to legally travel to Poland. Accordingly, they had visited the Polish Embassy in New Delhi, India, to obtain visas and provided their fingerprints. Arriving at Katunayake Airport from New Delhi on a SriLankan Airlines flight around 6:00 AM today, suspicion arose regarding the visas they presented for immigration clearance. After these documents were referred to the Border Surveillance Unit of the Department of Immigration and Emigration, technical examinations confirmed them to be fraudulently prepared fake visas.

However, it has been revealed that the passengers were unaware that these visas were fake until their arrest. Furthermore, investigations have shown that they were prepared to pay a substantial additional amount to the brokers for these fake visas after arriving in Sri Lanka.

The Department of Immigration and Emigration is conducting further investigations into this incident.