Mumbai: Man Arrested for Attempting to Board US-Bound Flight with Fake Documents

Mumbai's Sahar Police have arrested a man who tried to board a US-bound flight from Mumbai airport using forged documents. The accused, identified as Lans Boniface Coutinho, was detained by the Sahar police. A police official from Sahar Police Station stated that Coutinho was deported from the US to India a few months ago. Eager to return to the US, he obtained a series of fake documents through an agent and arrived at Mumbai Airport to travel.

According to senior officials at Sahar Police, the complaint was filed by Kailash Goyal (37), an immigration officer stationed at the airport. On the evening of November 4, at around 8 PM, Goyal was on duty when the accused appeared for an immigration check. Suspicious of the authenticity of his documents, Goyal presented him to a senior officer. During questioning, the accused admitted that he was deported by US immigration on grounds of being an inadmissible non-citizen and had returned to Mumbai on an Air India flight.

Upon further inspection of his documents, the immigration officers confirmed the deportation reason. When questioned about his Indian citizenship, ship joining letter, and e-migrate letter, the accused failed to provide satisfactory answers. Authorities then reached out to the shipping company he claimed to be employed with, only to find that the company had no association with him. This revealed that all his documents were forged.

After the documents were verified as fake, the accused confessed that he had obtained them through an agent. Following this, immigration officers handed him over to Sahar Police. Sahar Police have registered a case against him under sections 340(2), 336(3), 336(2), and 318(4) of the BNS Act and have initiated further investigations.