Police to file trafficking charges against Catholic priest

The police have framed the case against five others.

Kochi:  Police in Kochi is all set to file charges against six persons in a human trafficking case allegedly headed by a Catholic priest.

The team under Amoose Mammen, assistant commissioner of police, district crime records bureau, has completed the investigation and framed the case against six persons, including Fr. Jaison Kollanur.

According to the investigation, Fr. Kollanur, former secretary of the Kerala Catholic Youth Movement, colluded with five others to smuggle out unskilled people to the United States.

The first two accused, Tom Baby, chief executive officer of Shadwell, a coaching centre based at an export promotion park at Kakkanad; and his human resource manager Suby Kurian, used the cover of their institution to organize the human trafficking, the police said.

The institution offered training for the course offered by the U.K.-based Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Fr. Kollanur had toured many countries and realized the possibility of sending people to the West during his visit to the World Youth Conference in Canada in 2012, according to the charges.

The accused employed agents to spot prospective clients among the financially backward sections along the coastal belt.

The idea was to offer those selected tourist visas for the duration of a few weeks.

The accused allegedly collected 450,000 to 650,000, depending on the package provided, under the assurance that the clients would be taken across the US border.

The illegal immigrants would be left on their own once inside the country of destination.

However, the plan went awry when clients Mariadasan Raju, Ajiv Andrews, Jipson Thomas and Prince Lopez, all belonging to Thiruvananthapuram and presented as permanent employees of Shadwell, were detected during visa interviews at the US Consulate, Chennai.

They had applied for visas as participants of an educational conference at NASA, Houston.

On the basis of a complaint by consulate authorities, a case was registered in this regard.

The priest along with three other men surrendered in January this year.

Source: The Hindu