Indians face deportation over bogus stay permits
JAKARTA (JP): The Directorate-General of Immigration will soon deport 18 Indian nationals who were in possession of fake Indonesian Temporary Staying Permit's (KITAS), a senior immigration official said on Friday.
"They were arrested in two separate places. Two were arrested in Jakarta while the other 16 were apprehended in Puncak, West Java," Director for Immigration Supervision and Operation Zaiman Nurmatias said in a written statement, copies of which were made available to the media.
He said the 18 foreigners were going to use the fake permits to migrate to a third country.
The immigration office received on Nov. 19 a report from both an embassy and local residents that there were 18 Indian citizens possessing fake KITAS' and using fictitious sponsors to apply for visas, Zaiman said.
"We immediately conducted an investigation upon receiving the report from the embassy and the people. We caught Narinder Singh and Gurdip Singh in Wisma Djengger on Jl. Kramat VI in Central Jakarta on Nov. 26," he said.
The two admitted to the immigration officials that they were members of a syndicate sending Indian citizens to Jakarta and transporting them further to a third country.
"Each applicant paid US$ 1,300 to the two," Zaiman said.
Further investigation revealed that there were 16 other Indians waiting to be transported to Australia.
"They were caught in a villa near the Phinisi Restaurant in the Puncak resort area, West Java, recently," said Zaiman.
He said several fictitious companies had been used by the syndicate as sponsors in the processing of the Indian nationals' immigration documents, including PT Indokhrisma Nusa Pacific, PT Citra Guna Artha and PT Sumithama Sembada.
The syndicate used fake KITAS forms containing the immigration seal and forged the signature of an immigration official, Zaiman said.
"The syndicate also declared that the people were working in Indonesia under the sponsorship of the fictitious companies," he said.
"It's a common mode of operation widely used to smuggle people to Australia through Indonesia," he said. (05)