A Sri Lankan diplomat was arrested last weekend for alleged human trafficking, the Italian news site, Varese7 Press, reported.
The diplomat, whose identity remains unknown, reportedly attempted to bring two woman and two men in their twenties into Italy, for a fee of 4000 Euros per person.
An extract from the Daily Mirror is reproduced below:
"The male, a fifty-year-old diplomat who arrived from Doha together with his wife and four others -- two girls and two boys of around twenty years, presented himself as a diplomat to the Immigration officials to be able to access the station dedicated to the verification of documents of community passengers, at that time free.
Having obtained the authorization from the immigration officer, the diplomat approached handing over the passports of the entire group; after showing his diplomatic passport, which had a Schengen visa issued by the French diplomatic authority, he showed the passport of his wife, who also holds a diplomatic passport in possession of a similar Schengen visa. Continuing with the verification of documents, the attention of the State Police operator was attracted by the doubtful authenticity of the passports of the four youths , with similar Schengen visas.
The diplomat to reassure the border officer , said to go to France for tourism, presenting the two girls as their daughters and the two boys as nephews, stating that they would continue the journey by train. As proof of his version, the diplomatic agent showed the air tickets where it appeared that the group would leave the Paris airport on 12 September.
Not at all influenced by the role of the diplomat, the supervisor invited the entire group to follow him to the immigration office , where the two girls expressing themselves in English confirmed the version of the diplomat claiming to be his daughters.
From a deep investigation carried out by personnel expert in false documents, it was observed that all four ordinary passports of the youths were falsified through the reconstruction of the biographical page, made using raw materials and sophisticated printing techniques.
In the hand baggage of the investigated diplomat, the authentic passports of the four young Sinhalese used at Colombo airport to leave Sri Lanka were found hidden in the cover.
The four young people have admitted that they have no kinship with the diplomat who, on the contrary, at the request of their parents, had pledged, behind the consideration of 4,000 euros each, to accompany them in France where other relatives lived. The boys also stated that they had received instructions from their agents to behave like a normal family and that any request from the border officers would have to confirm that they were daughters and grandchildren respectively. During the checks it was revealed that the falsified passports are those of the real sons of the diplomat."
