The recent discovery of their involvement in sending people abroad for jobs by faking documents has revealed the shadowy side of unscrupulous language centres and travel agencies.

The arrest of Yam Bahadur Gurung of Kaski at the Tribhuvan International Airport around three weeks ago has brought to light the involvement of a big racket of education consultancies

actively sending Nepali youths to work in Japan on student visas. Acting on tip-off, which came along with

the arrest of Gurung, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of the Nepal Police launched a crackdown on a number of education consultancies, including Kimono Japanese Language School, Option Education Consultancy, United Study Center, Tokyo Education Foundation, Bhaktapur Japanese Language Institute and Euro Education Consultancy.

In December 11 last year, the CIB had raided Chabahil-based Govinda Travel and Tours, seizing 39 passports of prospective migrant workers along with other important documents.

A further investigation into the case revealed that the travel company had already sent around 250 job

aspirants, mainly women, abroad. This arrest came only a few months after the CIB had seized over 100 passports and other valuable documents from Baneshwor-based Kelvin Travels.

In yet another raid on August 28 last year, the CIB arrested Manoj Bahadur Singh of Bhojpur and found that he had collected Rs 400,000 to Rs 800,000 each from around 32 persons pledging them jobs in the UK. It came to the fore that he was colluding with several hotels to send them abroad.

“The number of complaints against consultancies, language centers and travel agents are getting higher by the day,” said DSP Suresh Bhattarai, who heads a CIB pillar dealing with crimes related to fake documents and foreign employment. According to him, the crime of faking documents is dangerous, as innocent individuals are likely to fall prey to the harsh laws in foreign land.

According to DSP Bhattarai, many innocent individuals, upon reaching alien land, are forced to live in miserable conditions and are deprived of minimum facilities promised by their agents in Nepal. “A number of those betrayed individuals mail their respective agents in Nepal complaining about their worst jobs and living conditions in Japan,” he said.

“However, the agents blackmail them in return, saying they would complain Japanese police about their fake documents.”

Faking college certificates and getting fake student visas for studying in Japan is the main modus operandi of the rackets of education consultancies. However, rackets working with

agents who illegally traffic individuals to the banned countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, are operating internationally with huge criminal nexus. “The major players of such rackets stay in India, Dubai and Gulf countries,” said the DSP.

Visas and other documents required to fly to the restricted countries are scanned in transit in Gulf countries or India, where the aspiring migrant workers are first flown from Nepal. “There is very little we can do when rackets gain an international access,” Bhattarai said. “Those arrested in Nepal are only the persons working at the lowest ring of the racket.”

Despite an increasing number of arrests, DSP Bhattarai claims that police and other concerned stakeholders have not been able to deliver their best due to ambiguous laws of the country.

“The existing laws have given us the authority only to investigate fake government documents,” he said. “We have not been clearly authorised to look into fake private documents. Moreover, the punishment mechanism is also not too strong.”

According to existing laws, anyone arrested on charges of faking documents can be released by court on a mere bail amount of Rs 10,000 at the most.

Although it is hard to find the exact data, officials at the Department of Foreign Employment say they receive around three similar complaints every day. The complaints are then forwarded to the CIB or other police units. Plaints are also recived via the Hello Sarkar, a public service initiative by former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai to address people’s grievances, and other government and private mechanisms.

“We have been regularly raiding suspected offices after getting written complaints from victims, police and embassies. This has emerged as a big problem,” said DoFE Director Divas Acharya. However, informed sources say many unscrupulous consultancies and travel agencies go unpunished as they bribe officials.

There has been a sharp increase in reported cases of foreign employment frauds. Although the actual number of frauds is believed to be higher, DoFE records show that 1,864 fraud cases were reported in the first 10 months of this fiscal year. The number of organised frauds committed by registered outsourcing companies, stands at 832. The DoFE had recorded 2,172 fraud cases in the last 12 months.

DoFE officials say various reasons, including the strong nexus among brokers, travel agents, hotel operators and airport officials, have helped these group send migrant workers abroad illegally.

Investigations show the government ban on women below 30 years of age to travel to Gulf countries has attracted some travel agents, hotels and education consultancies into this heinous profession. Some others were also found to have sent workers to lucrative western nations.

Published on: 16 June 2013 | The Kathmandu Post