GHAZIABAD: Police here busted a racket that fraudulently obtained over two dozen passports from the Delhi Passport Office using fake addresses, officials said on Sunday.
The case came to light after the Regional Passport Officer wrote to the police in December last year, flagging suspicious applications in which multiple passports were issued on the same address and the same mobile number was used repeatedly, they said.
Investigation revealed that the applicants never resided at the addresses mentioned in the passport applications, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rural) Surendra Nath Tiwari said.
An FIR has been registered against 26 persons, including a postman and a woman. Five accused, including the postman, have been arrested so far, police said.
The postman, Arun Kumar, allegedly colluded with the racket, charging Rs 2,000 per passport to divert deliveries to gang members, police said. He confessed to the arrangement, while intelligence agencies are probing
the wider network.