Post by : Meena Ariff

Photo: PTI

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a charge sheet against eight people involved in a big visa fraud linked to the French Embassy in New Delhi.

The main person involved is Shubham Shokeen, who worked as a Local Law Officer in the visa department of the Embassy of France. Along with him, his brother Abhishek Shokeen, father Samunder Singh, wife Aarti Choudhary, two visa agents—Balwinder Singh Bartia and Pritpal Singh—and two middlemen, Jashandeep Singh Sidhu and Bhawan Shokeen, have also been named.

This case was filed after CBI got reports of a scam related to Schengen visas. The investigation showed that between January 2021 and May 2022, Shubham and his team cheated people, mostly from Punjab, who wanted to go to Europe.

They took a huge amount of money—between ₹13 lakh to ₹45 lakh—from each person in return for a visa. After giving the visas, they destroyed all the documents to hide the fraud.

During searches in Punjab and Delhi, CBI found a large amount of cash and many papers showing the purchase of properties worth crores in India and abroad. The money from the visa scam was moved through several bank accounts before reaching Shubham and his family.

To trace the money outside India, the CBI got help from international police. For the first time in India, they issued something called a "Silver Notice". This notice is sent through INTERPOL (international police) to find and freeze properties bought with illegal money in other countries.

CBI worked with different national and international agencies to collect proof in this case. The investigation is still going on.