In a major operation against fraudsters in the Capital, the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD) busted a fake U.S. visa racket that had been duping people with promises of easy jobs in the U.S, and arrested four in connection with the fraud.

The con job was a technically-proficient racket with fake U.S. visas and documents being produced through software and scanners.

The arrested have been identified as 26-year-old Raj Kumar Rai of Ilam, 32-year-old Rom Malla of Kailali, 23-year-old Manoj Lama of Dhanusha, and 45-year-old Phirulal Chaudhary. The arrested have confessed to their crime and have told the investigators that the fraud was the means to easy money.

The police have also seized forged bank statements of major financial institutions, Nepali citizenship certificates, five passports imprinted with fake U.S. visas, educational certificates, and government stamps from the arrested.

Making the arrested public on Tuesday, the police dubbed the arrest a big achievement in nabbing organised fraudsters.

The fraud, according to Senior Superintendent of Police Rana Bahadur Chand, had so far duped at least six people. Each victim was asked to pay Rs. 1.5 million for a visa, one of whom had already paid Rs. 500,000 as advance. The police suspect that there could be other unreported victims as well.

Using a modus operandi that is reminiscent of films, the racket was being operated by using sophisticated software and scanning machines for printing the fake visas. Rai, one of the arrested, had recently returned from Singapore and was the brains behind the operation, producing fake visas and documents with the help of software, photocopy machines, scanners, and even fake stamps.

Police said Rai used to scan original U.S. visas and delete the picture and the address from the visa through Photoshop to produce fraudulent documents that looked like the original.

The other three, Malla, Lama and Chaudhary, were assigned to lure victims who wanted easy jobs in the U.S.

The four often used foreigners so as to boast to their customers that they knew the employees of the American Embassy here in Kathmandu, said Inspector Krishna Prasad Koirala, who is investigating the case.

The police had kept the four under close surveillance for more than four days after receiving a complaint that people had been issued American visas without going through the due-process. The investigators could get hold of the four when they called up Bal Kumar Rai, a victim, and urged him to bring Rs. 1 million with him for the visa.