The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested six persons, including two employees of the visa department of the French Embassy in New Delhi, on charges of visa fraud. The accused have been identified as Shubham Shokeen, Aarti Mandal, Navjot Singh, Chetan Sharma, Satwinder Singh Purewal, Manpreet Singh and others. Shubham and Aarti worked in the visa department of the French Embassy in New Delhi.

It is alleged that the duo, in connivance with others, perpetrated the visa fraud from January 1 to May 6 this year. It is feared that in five months, both have issued French visas to many applicants from Punjab and Jammu on the basis of fake documents. Most of them are young farmers or unemployed from Punjab who have not traveled before. 

It is alleged that embassy personnel Shubham and Aarti have issued entry visas of France to three other accused by taking a bribe of Rs 50,000 per visa. They issued visas without the approval of the head of the visa department of the embassy. After this the evidence was also destroyed. In all the three cases, a Bangalore-based company had written to the French consulate citing work in French companies. Fake documents were submitted along with the letter.

After registering an FIR in a visa fraud case, the CBI raided six premises of the accused in Delhi, Patiala, Gurdaspur, and Jammu. The CBI has also recovered several mobiles and laptops during the raid. Along with this, many suspicious passports have also been found from their hideouts. the matter is being investigated.