Officials of the Immigration and Emigration Department’s Border Surveillance Unit (BSU) on suspicion checked a couple from Jaffna to possess genuine Sri Lankan passports with boarding cards bound for Abu Dhabi.

But when the sleuths searched the male passenger’s belongings they found two forged Sri Lankan passports bearing identical photographs of the couple under different names and details and a forged Italian permanent residence card of the man.

However, when the female passenger had refused to talk or cooperate, the immigration sleuths had used one of their women officers to search the former to find a forged Italian PR card with her photograph hidden in her undergarments.

When grilled at length the couple had admitted that they were to initially take a flight to Abu Dhabi with their genuine Sri Lankan passports and then to proceed to Milan, Italy by using their forged Sri Lankan passports.

A senior Immigration official told the Daily Mirror the couple had planned to discard their travel documents once they reach Italy and to seek asylum. The male passenger was identified to be a resident of Jaffna aged 27 years, whilst his partner aged 28 was also from the same area.

The immigration officials are presently investigating whether this was part of an organised syndicate to send Sri Lankan citizens to Italy by arranging them forged travel documents, like the Monday’s case where five men from Jaffna were nabbed at the BIA with forged documents.

The Daily Mirror reported yesterday about five Sri Lankan males illegally attempting to reach Milan Malpensa Airport and tear their travel documents before surrendering them to the Italian authorities in seek of asylum. They had all paid Rs.20 million each to a local agent who had arranged their forged papers.

The arrested couple had been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) unit at the BIA for further investigations.

(Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana)