Dubai: Two visitors have been accused of forging Schengen visas on their forged travel documents and bribing a residency officer to allow them board a plane to travel.
The Pakistani visitors, aged 19 and 28, were said to have used forged Pakistani passports and stamped on them forged Schengen and Malaysian visas to travel from Dubai International Airport in January.
A 30-year-old Pakistani mechanic mediated between the visitors and an Emirati residency officer to help them check in at the airline counter and process their boarding passes to board the plane.
Records said a ground staff at the boarding counter of the European airlines, suspected that the visitors’ passports were forged. The residency officer accompanied the Pakistani visitors until they reached the boarding counter.
Upon checking the passports, the airline officer discovered that the passports were forged and that they did not have any UAE entry or exit stamps on them although they had Schengen visas.
The aviation officer contacted the Schengen visa counsellor at the airport, who told him that the visas on the two passports were forged.
The aviation officer then contacted the police at the airport and the trio was taken into custody. Further interrogations led to the arrest of the mechanic.
Prosecutors charged the 19-year-old and the 28-year-old of forging two Pakistani passports and Schengen visas and using the forged documents to travel. They were also accused of collaborating with the mechanic who paid Dh1,600 in bribe to the residency officer to allow the visitors board a plane using forged documents.
The Emirati residence officer was accused of abusing his authority and accepting bribes.
The visitors pleaded not guilty and denied the charges of forging the passports and the visas when they appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
However they admitted that they used the forged documents to travel.
The mechanic and the Emirati residence officer pleaded not guilty.
The trial continues.
