Visa consultancy fraud

Amid incidents of visa consultancies cheating foreign aspirants surfacing across the state, a visa consultancy official in Vadodara was booked for cheating another such firm based in Ahmedabad.

A complaint has been filed against a woman named Mallika, alias Mahi Tiwari Nikesh Belthariya, for allegedly cheating another visa consultancy firm owner, Hitesh Vala, of ₹24.84 lakh.

The accused allegedly charged Hitesh for UK work permit visas for two of his clients, which later turned out to be fake and were rejected.

One visa consultancy defrauds another

Hitesh used to outsource his operations to Mahi’s firm in Vadodara. When two of his clients, Kajal Khatri and Mansi Patel, approached Hitesh for UK work permit visas, he assigned this task to Mahi.

Mahi charged ₹1.58 lakh each from both clients as a deposit. It was agreed that the remaining ₹31.84 lakh would be paid after the visas were issued.

About four days later, Mallika sent the work permit letters, and Hitesh paid her the remaining ₹31.84 lakh.

However, Kajal and Mansi’s visas were rejected since the permit letter provided by Mahi were fake.

Upon confronting her, Mallika returned the deposit amount to both clients, as well as ₹7 lakh to Hitesh.

The cheques issued by Mahi to Hitesh for the partial payment of the remaining amount bounced.

Seeking the remaining amount of ₹24.84 lakh, Hitesh filed a complaint against Mahi with Ahmedabad crime branch.

Also read:

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