Read part one of the series here.
When Harkishan Patel dreamed of moving to the United States, he never thought his journey would find him sitting in a hotel in Delhi, attending a three-day training camp on how to get through airport security without questions.
“They told me what to do, what answers to give to questions, what to wear,” said Harkishan, a resident of Kalol in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar. “They then put me on a flight to Canada.”
Harkishan did not travel as himself. His ticket and passport identified him as a senior citizen whose name he was reluctant to reveal to this reporter, though he insisted these were “original” documents – just not his own. With three other people who’d attended a similar camp, he sat in a plane at Delhi airport, nervous but ready for adventures.
“We were just sitting when the policemen came,” he said.
Harkishan “escaped” through the back of the plane, though he didn’t explain how the cabin crew or ground staff let him go. He’s still in Kalol. “To be honest, my luck is rotten,” he said. “I have tried many times.”
It’s a familiar story for Gujaratis like Harkishan, “trying their luck” to illegally immigrate to the United States, to the promises of the American dream. Kalol is a hub for this kabootarbaazi in the state, home to a well-oiled network of “agents” promising the stars – and delivering if you’re lucky.
In Newslaundry’s travels through dusty villages in Gujarat, we learned that illegal immigration initially played out this way: Dance troupes or film crews would travel abroad on visitor visas. Once they landed on foreign soil, they’d vanish. Each person would pay Rs 8-9 lakh for this risky journey. If the story sounds familiar, it’s similar to allegations levelled against singer Daler Mehndi, who has been convicted of human trafficking.
With growing media attention in the early 2000s, this method soon became unviable. US agencies and airport protocol also became stricter in the years following 9/11.
So, agents facilitating these movements found new ways to get the job done. And there have been increasing media reports of Indian families, often from Gujarat, who die trying. In the past week, three Gujaratis were found dead on the Canadian border, allegedly trying to make their way into the US. Three others are missing.
But the agents are earning crores.
From decision to documents
Through conversations with those involved, we pieced together the process. There are variations across locations and agents, but the bare bones of the methodology remains the same.
In kabootarbaazi parlance, a person trying to illegally immigrate to the US is called a “passenger”. They usually contact a “local agent” or “micro-agent” who either lives in their village or near enough.
The “local agent” will then introduce the passenger to a “sub-agent”, where rates are discussed in detail. Do you want to go alone? It costs Rs 40-50 lakh. Do you want to take your spouse and children? Your charge is Rs 1.3 crore, or more.
The passenger appoints a “financier” – someone from his family or village who guarantees to pay the amount. The financier pays up when the passenger reaches American shores.
With these details ironed out, the passenger is told about the “main agent”, who lives in a big city like Ahmedabad or Delhi. Main agents tend not to meet passengers in person – they communicate with them through their financiers. Newslaundry also could not speak to any “main agents” for this story, only their subordinates.
Importantly, all the money is paid directly to the main agent – “local agents” and “sub-agents” get their cuts from this person at the top of the pyramid. For instance, a local agent usually gets about Rs 3-4 lakh.
The main agent is the one who produces paperwork to apply for passports and visas: Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, marriage certificates, education certificates. Some of these documents are forged, others are legitimate but actually belong to someone else.
Police officials and villagers alleged the agents have an “in” with local passport officials to smoothen the process. Rain Mishra, an official at the Ahmedabad passport office, said he doesn’t check individual documents, “we just see whether the person has required documents or not”.
If all documents are present and accounted for, “we take the process forward”, he said.
Next up is police verification, an essential part of applying for a passport. The police are expected to visit an applicant’s home address and ask questions. Passengers are coached by their agent handlers on what to say. If all goes well, the passport arrives a month later.
For visas, agents often apply for visitor visas not to the US but to Canada, Mexico, Turkey or the United Kingdom, to name a few. An official with the Gujarat crime branch told Newslaundry that most illegal immigrants go to the US “via the Canada, Turkey and Mexico” routes.
These visas are, comparatively speaking, easy enough to get. “Visitor visas are generally available to those who have some money in their account or who own a business,” said KT Kamariya, a senior official with the Gujarat police’s state monitoring cell. “In such a scenario, the agent prepares a bank statement showing lists of transactions, but it’s all fake. Sometimes fake companies are shown.”
He said these companies even have fake GST numbers and cooked-up registrations with the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises to lend them legitimacy.
This is what Brij Yadav did. Yadav was originally from Gonda in Uttar Pradesh but later settled in Chhatral in Gujarat with his family. Police investigations reveal that he was made the owner of a company in Rajkot and given a Union Bank statement alleging he had Rs 10 lakh in his account. Yadav, his wife and child went to Mexico by way of Turkey. He died in December 2022 while scaling the “Trump wall” on the US-Mexico border.
The Gujarat state monitoring cell has arrested two people for sending Yadav to the US illegally; the search for five other accused is ongoing.
Training, travel and threats
Before Yadav left India, he – like Harkishan and hundreds of others – may have attended a training programme after he got the visa. Most passengers are villagers who have never travelled on a flight before. They speak little to no English. They’re usually dispatched abroad in groups of 10 to 15.
A senior police officer at the Gandhinagar police headquarters told Newslaundry they have evidence of agents paying a “pushing charge” – a hefty amount – to officers who work at airports in Delhi, Mumbai and others to make sure their passengers make it through without being stopped.
Passengers are then put on direct flights to Canada, or flights to Mexico via Turkey.
Those who take the latter route stay in Turkey for a few days, Newslaundry learned, to “give the impression” that they’re tourists. “Pushing charges” are purportedly paid at Turkish airports too through the agents’ networks. Charges per passenger are around Rs 1.5 lakh. Some passengers are unlucky enough to be stopped at Turkey; they then turn around and go back to India. But such cases are allegedly “rare”, Newslaundry was told, and these passengers don’t have to pay a rupee for their troubles.
But for those who make it to Mexico, “the process continues at the Mexico airports as well,” said a Gujarat police official. “The officials know they’re kabootarbaaz. The immigration officer on the other end is given Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh per person – this is called a pulling charge.”
When a passenger reaches Mexico, they must cross the border to the US within 48 hours. Agents usually have people to help them at the border – called “Macaulay” for reasons unknown. Crossing the border entails getting past the Trump wall, which is around 30 feet high in some places.
Crossing into the US is another gamble. If a passenger is spotted by security forces, they’re instructed to “raise their hands and surrender”, an agent told Newslaundry.
“The police take them to detention camps and give them an alien number,” said a Gujarat police official. “They tell the US officials, ‘I am in danger in my country, that’s why I have come here.’ They try to become refugees this way.” Passengers usually stay in detention centres for a few days until their lawyers – often organised by agents – arrive. If they’re lucky, they get asylum.
What if a passenger safely makes it across the border, dodging security personnel with every step? It’s up to them to make their way to the cities they want to live in.
“Agents mostly arrange for jobs for them in advance,” a police official explained. “But if someone hasn’t got any work, they stay in a temple or gurdwara for a few days until they find work.”
These “jobs” sound good on paper but some illegal immigrants are little more than bonded labourers.
“Some Gujarati NRIs, who travelled to the US legally, act as financiers for illegal immigrants – they hire them for shops or other businesses,” said a source. ““They get less than minimum wage and they spend three to four years trying to pay their dues to the agent. They can’t work anywhere else during that period.”
In 2021, a group of Indian workers had filed a lawsuit in the US alleging human trafficking and wage violations against the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha. They claimed they were confined and forced to work on the Swaminarayan temple in New Jersey at less than minimum wage.
The Canada route
Journalist Bhargav Pareek said “two lines” of illegal immigration run from India – one from Delhi and the other from Mumbai. “Bittu Bhai is a big agent in the Delhi line. He is from Punjab and lives in Canada,” he alleged. “Ashok Chowdhary is a big name from Ahmedabad. He works with Bittu – they take people from Delhi to Canada and make them cross the Canada border into the US.”
Newslaundry could not track down either Bittu Bhai or Ashok Chowdhary.
Sources told Newslaundry the Canada route is “more dangerous” than the Mexico one.
In January 2022, a family of four from the village of Dingucha in Gujarat left their home and set off for Canada, hoping to make their way to the US. The bodies of Jagdish Patel, Vaishaliben Patel, and their two children aged 11 and three were found a week later, a few feet away from the US border. According to news reports, they had planned to cross into the US on foot.
A Florida man named Steve Shand was arrested in connection with the deaths. He was arrested and charged with human smuggling. An affidavit filed in a US district indicated that Jagdish and his family had been part of a group with seven others, trying to get into the US. Shand had allegedly hired a 15-seater vehicle to take them near the border.
He was picked up at the US-Canada border by US border patrol agents on January 19, 2022 with someone else’s driving licence. When he was arrested, he was with two Indians trying to cross the border into America. They were arrested too.
Crime branch officer Dilip Thakor is the complainant in the case registered in Gujarat over the deaths of Jagdish and his family. He told Newslaundry they arrested two agents – Bhavesh Patel and Yogesh Patel – in connection with the deaths.
Thakor said every passenger sent abroad earns agents a “profit of Rs 20-30 lakh”.
IELTS scam
There are other ways by which people attempt to illegally cross into the US.
In India, the International English Language Testing System, an English proficiency test, is a test taken by 13 lakh people every year to apply for colleges abroad. Last year, the Gujarat police discovered a “scam” whereby IELTS scores were “rigged”, so students could go to Canada and then try and smuggle themselves into the US.
The matter came to light when four students tried to cross the Canada border into the US. In court, they required translators despite having scored well in their IELTS tests.
An investigation in India, after a communication was received by the US embassy, revealed the four students were from Mehsana in Gujarat and an agent named Amit Chaudhary had someone else take their IELTS tests for them.
“Their exams were taken at a hotel in Nausari near Surat on September 25, 2021,” said a senior police officer associated with the investigation. “We tried to track down the examiner who administered the test. A source tipped us off about Amit Choudhary and we learned he was in Nausari on that day.”
Choudhary’s call records indicated he was in contact with employees of a company called Planet Group that conducts the IELTS test. “We learned students would take the test by writing in pencil,” the police official said. “When the exam ended, their answer sheets would be changed. Experts in English would wait outside the centre and write the exams for them.”
The police registered an FIR and have arrested six people so far. They allegedly identified nine people who took the tests on behalf of students weak in English, and have identified 43 accused.
“Almost everyone has got bail,” the official added, “but Amit Choudhary has not been arrested yet.”
Newslaundry could not verify any of these details. This reporter was unable to get a response from Planet Group.
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