French Embassy Visa Scam: CBI charges law officer, 7 others

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a chargesheet against eight accused in a visa fraud case including a law officer in the Visa Department of the Embassy of France.

Besides Shubham Shokeen, the law officer, the charge sheet has been filed against his father, brother and wife. Also, two visa agents and two middlemen have been charge-sheeted by the CBI.

The agency, in a press statement released on Wednesday, said that the International Operations Division of CBI, on the basis of inputs of a visa fraud in the Embassy of France, New Delhi, had registered a case.


"During investigation, it was established that during the period of January, 2021 to May, 2022, while working as local law officer in Visa Department of the Embassy of France, New Delhi, the accused targeted applicants from Punjab seeking Schengen visas, through a network of visa agents and induced them to give huge amount of money for obtaining Schengen visas", the agency said in its press statement.

It further said that a network of visa agents, mostly based in Punjab, allegedly received money ranging from ₹13 lakh to ₹45 lakhs from each visa applicant and in lieu of these large sums of money, visa applications were processed by the accused and after issuance of Schengen visas, the accused destroyed the visa documents and files.

The agency claims to have recovered large amounts of cash and multiple documents related to properties worth crores, acquired in India and abroad, from various locations in Punjab and Delhi. The CBI has alleged that two accused Visa agents were the key co-conspirators who funnelled the money through various bank accounts, which ultimately reached the accused local law officer, his kin through two accused middlemen.

In order to trace the proceeds of crime abroad, the International Operations Division of CBI, in coordination with International Police Cooperation Unit of CBI were also successful in getting India's first Silver notice published in this case, the agency said. A silver notice is a new type of color-coded notice that focuses on tracing and recovering criminal assets globally.