The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has so far arrested four accused in a case related to trafficking of Indian nationals for combat role in the Russian Army.
Arun and Yesudas Junior, both residents of Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, were held on Tuesday in the case registered on March 6. The other two accused, Nijil Jobi Bensam from Kanyakumari and Anthony Michael Elangovan from Mumbai, were earlier arrested on April 24 and are in judicial custody.
On March 6, the agency had busted a human trafficking network spread across several States and in other countries. It targeted gullible youth on the promise of lucrative jobs abroad. “These traffickers have been operating as an organised network and were luring Indian nationals through social media channels like YouTube etc. and also through their local contacts/agents for highly paid jobs in Russia,” said the CBI.
The trafficked Indian nationals were trained in combat roles and deployed at front bases in the Russia-Ukraine war zone against their wishes, thus putting their lives in danger. Some of the victims got grievously injured in the war.
The CBI alleged that Mr. Bensam worked as a translator on contract basis in Russia and was one of the key members of the network operating from there to facilitate recruitment of Indian nationals in the Russian Army. “Accused Michael Anthony was facilitating his co-accused Faisal Baba based in Dubai and others in Russia in getting the visa processing done in Chennai and booking the air tickets for victims to go to Russia,” it said.
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The other two were allegedly the main recruiters of Indian nationals from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, said the agency, adding that investigations were under way to identify the others involved.
On March 7, the CBI had raided over a dozen locations in Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Ambala, Chandigarh, Madurai and Chennai against the private visa consultancy firms, agents and others who were allegedly part of the network. The agency had come across 35 instances of people sent abroad.
Among those named in the First Information Report were 24x7 RAS Overseas Foundation (Delhi) and its director Suyash Mukut; O.S.D Bros Travels & Visa Services (Mumbai) and its director Rakesh Pandey; Adventure Visa Services (Ambala, Chandigarh, Punjab) and its director Manjeet Singh; Baba Vlogs Overseas Recruitment Solutions (Dubai) and its director Faisal Abdul Mutalib Khan.
The others included Srividhya (Madurai), Ramesh Kumar Palanisamy and Santhosh (then in Russia) from Tamil Nadu; Tomy and Job from Thiruvananthapuram; Adventure Visa Services (Ambala) and Tanu Kant Sharma from Palwal in Haryana; Christina, a resident of Russia; Mohammed Sufiyan Dawood Ahmad Darugar and his wife Pooja from Palghar, Maharashtra; and Moinuddin Chhippa (Rajasthan), who was then in Russia.
Following the searches, the agency had said that the human traffickers and the agents were also cheating Indians by getting them enrolled in dubious private universities in Russia by offering them free/discounted visa extensions and fee structure.
