Armenia dreams turn sour as immigration firm dupes 22 city youths

The Tribune, India

Dec 20 2018

Armenia dreams turn sour as immigration firm dupes 22 city youths

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 20

A city-based immigration firm allegedly duped around 22 city residents of approximately Rs 18 lakhs on the pretext of sending them to Armenia. As per residents who are now terming it a fraud, the travel agent of the firm has locked the office and is absconding now.

Lakhvir Singh, Jatinder Singh, Baldev Singh from the city and Bittu from Amritsar, among others, said, “An immigration firm, Standard Life, that was operating in the Basant Nagar area has cheated us. The owner of the firm, Mandeep Singh, and his assistant Simarjit Kaur had promised us of providing work visa and jobs of food packers and drivers in Armenia. They charged Rs 90,000 from each candidate. There are 22 candidates cheated by the firm. The travel agent not only fled away with the money, but also did not return our passports.”

They said, “Even the air travel tickets provided by them were fake and we had to return from the Delhi airport after the authorities concerned raised questions over the authenticity of the documents/tickets. When we contacted the assistant working at the immigration firm, she told us that the tickets have exceeded the travel time limit and asked us to return to Bathinda so that she could provide fresh tickets to us. But when we came back to Bathinda from Delhi, we were shocked to see that the office of the immigration firm was lying locked. ”

The victims have submitted a written complaint to SSP Nanak Singh and urged him to do the needful.