The 21 Indian passengers of the Nicaragua-bound flight of Legend Airways which was grounded for suspected human trafficking in France, have failed to elucidate why they boarded the chartered airplane.
The passengers have been requested to file their statements by India’s Central Investigative Division (CID) on Friday, based on native media stories.
Most of the passengers have maintained that they have been travelling to Nicaragua as vacationers, CID officers informed The Indian Categorical newspaper.
Nevertheless, an unnamed officer informed the newspaper that the passengers have been “unable to elucidate” why they boarded the doubtful flight which had largely “single individuals and unaccompanied minors”.
“They’d legitimate paperwork to obtain visas on arrival and a few even had vacationer visas,” the official stated.
“In addition they can’t clarify why they paid their brokers enormous sums of cash to board the flight…”
An officer stated they have been additionally questioned by the division if they’d any plans to cross into the US of America illegally after reaching Latin America.
“There was a hearsay they’d deliberate to enter the US illegally after touchdown in Nicaragua,” S P Rajkumar, extra director normal of police, CID – Crime and Railways, informed The Hindustan Occasions.
“We’re going into the main points to search out out who have been the brokers behind their journey.”
The flight, an Airbus A340 carrying 276 passengers, together with 65 from Gujarat, was grounded for 4 days in France final week over suspected human trafficking, sparking speculations over unlawful immigration.
The flight landed in Mumbai on 26 December and it has been a thriller ever since. What provides to the complexity of the scenario is the numerous sums of cash passengers allegedly paid to native brokers facilitating their journey.
Whereas a minimum of two brokers have been named by the passengers, the CID stated that no authorized motion could be taken towards them with out concrete proof of solid paperwork or a proper criticism from a passenger.
“The CID (crime) desires to take motion towards brokers who had promised assist to the victims to enter the US and different international locations (illegally),” Sanjay Kharat, superintendent of police, CID (Crime), stated final week.