The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has uncovered connections between a fake passport scam and an international woman trafficking racket in West Bengal and Sikkim. The agency’s investigation intensified following the arrest of Varun Singh Rathor from Naxalbari in the Darjeeling district on Saturday night.
Sources indicate that Rathor has links to an agent network in Nepal, primarily involved in trafficking Indian women from West Bengal and Sikkim through the neighboring country. This connection emerged after the CBI discovered a significant number of fake passports in Rathor’s possession, most of which belonged to women from northern West Bengal and adjacent Sikkim.
Rathor is the second person arrested in the CBI’s ongoing investigation into the fake passport scheme. The first was Goutam Kumar Saha, the Senior Superintendent at Gangtok’s Passport Seva Laghu Kendra, who was caught accepting a bribe of Rs 1.90 lakh.
In a coordinated crackdown on the fake passport racket, CBI officials conducted searches at 50 locations across Kolkata, Gangtok, Siliguri, Darjeeling, and Alipurduar.
