(UTV|COLOMBO) – Two Sri Lankan men have been convicted and sentenced to eight months’ jail in Singapore for possessing fraudulent United Kingdom (UK) passports, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said on Monday (09), Yahoo News Singapore reported.
Nagamany Kangatharan, 46, and Kandasamy Niththiyananthan, 27, were arrested by ICA officers at the transit area of Changi Airport Terminal 3 in June this year.
A 31-year-old Malaysian, Ihsan Ismie Bin Ishak, who supplied the fraudulent passports, was also arrested after meeting up with the men there. He was convicted and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment as well on 28 June.
Nagamany and Kandasamy, both unrelated, sought the assistance of an unknown agent in Sri Lanka to make the arrangements for their trip to London through Singapore, as they wanted to seek employment outside of Sri Lanka.
After arriving in Singapore on 18 June using Sri Lanka passports issued with their own particulars, they met up with Ismie the next day to receive the fraudulent UK passports, which displayed their photos but did not contain particulars belonging to them.
When they reached Changi Airport Terminal 1, Nagamany tried to collect his boarding pass at the check-in counter while Kandasamy observed him.
Nagamany left the counter hurriedly when he found that the ticketing officers took longer than usual to process his boarding pass.
It was when both men decided to call off their travel plan to London and return to Colombo, Sri Lanka via Terminal 3, that they were arrested by ICA officers.
“The ICA takes a serious view of persons possessing a fraudulent travel document or abetting others to be in possession of fraudulent travel document,” said the ICA.
Anyone caught knowingly to be in possession of a false foreign travel document can be sentenced to an imprisonment term of up to 10 years, or to a fine not exceeding $10,000, or both, under the Passports Act Section 47(6).
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