Youth from Jaffna with forged passport arrested at BIA

A  youth from Jaffna, attempting to flee to Canada using a forged passport, was arrested by the Immigration and Emigration Border Enforcement Unit at Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) last night (11).

The 24-year-old youth residing in Point Pedro of Jaffna had arrived at BIA last night to board SriLankan Airlines flight UL-217 to leave for Doha, Qatar.

The Canadian passport that he presented for aviation clearance raised suspicions among the airline personnel, where they moved to forward him to the Immigration and Emigration Border Enforcement Unit officials.

During inspections, it was discovered that the information on the biodata page of a Canadian passport owned by another individual has been forged and the passport has been fraudulently obtained.

The arrested youth revealed that his Canadian uncle paid Rs. 4 million to a Sri Lankan broker to create a fake passport. His initial plan was to travel to Doha and to Canada afterwards.

Accordingly, the officers of the Immigration and Emigration Border Enforcement Unit who arrested the said youth and handed him over to the Criminal Investigation Department of BIA for further investigations.

By: T.K.G. Kapila