As many as 30 passengers boarded Turkish Airlines flight TK 713 with fake Turkish e-visas on the morning of June 11 at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA).
The "C' shift was on night duty at the immigration at the time.
Two days later, on June 13, all 30 Bangladeshi men, aged between 20 and 28, were deported under Turkish airport police supervision.
This correspondent revealed during the investigation that the men had no travel history and at least half of them were visiting Dhaka for the first time.
Despite their backgrounds as daily wage labourers, shopkeepers, or garment workers, they told the immigration police that they were going on a five-day trip to Turkey.
However, all of them had cleared immigration at Dhaka airport without any issue.
After a five-hour flight, they arrived in Turkey and were seen roaming at the airport or drinking juice, not proceeding through Turkish immigration.
Two passengers, Nayan Kumar Shil from Faridpur and Ashraful from Sylhet, noticed that two members of the group were missing.
While looking for the missing passengers, they encountered the Turkish police. The men revealed they had only met each other on the flight.
The Turkish police found that the group had fake Turkish e-visas. Passengers also had boarding passes to Alexandria, Egypt, which they claimed were issued at Dhaka airport. Their connecting flight was scheduled for early morning on June 12.
The Turkish authorities detained them around 8pm on June 11.
The 30 men were held at the airport jail for over 24 hours and then were deported to Dhaka on June 13 at 5am via Turkish Airlines flight TK 712.
That same evening, this correspondent contacted four of the deportees and by the next morning had obtained their contact numbers and interviewed all 30 individuals separately.
They confirmed their original destination was Alexandria, Egypt, with a plan of reaching Libya by sea and then entering Italy.
The men then filed a case for fraud and forgery against their travel agency, broker, the airport supervisor Tamim bin Shafiq (airline staff) and other boarding bridge officials (airline staff) at the airport police station.
However, the case document does not explain how these passengers cleared Bangladesh immigration.
According to the visa policy, passengers with false visas are not eligible for clearance at any airport.
What happened at HSIA?
When asked how he had obtained a visa and passed immigration, Tanvir Hasan Moin, from Narail, said he met the broker through a fellow villager. He found out that he could go abroad easily.
On June 10, he came to Dhaka for the first time and entered a room at a hotel in the Paltan area where he was to meet a man named Russel.
At around 3pm, Russel instructed him and several others in the hotel room to hide their papers related to travelling to Egypt and Libya during immigration.
They were also instructed to tell the immigration officers that they were only visiting Turkey.
Russel told them to arrive at HSIA by midnight, collect their boarding passes at 1:30am on June 11, and pass through immigration at 2am.
When asked about what immigration officers had asked them at the Dhaka airport—Moin—an ambulance driver at a hospital, said: “They only asked about how long we would stay and why. I said it was a five-day trip, and they stamped our passports.”
All 30 passengers gave similar accounts.
The main plaintiff, Rabiqul Islam Shipon, from Narsingdi, said: “At the immigration, seven of us were pulled aside after our passports were checked. An officer collected our documents, and then the officer returned them after 10 minutes. He told us to show these (the documents) and get the immigration seal.”
Shipon, who is employed at a photocopy shop, said: “We got the seals and boarded the plane without any problems.”
Shri-Nath Chandra Barman, from Munshiganj, said: “Since we weren’t stopped, we had no idea that the visas were fake. No one informed us. Had we known, we wouldn’t have taken the risk.”
Who is 'A-31 sir'?
Based on the information gleaned from the passengers, this correspondent has found that the boarding passes had a sign saying “OK from prosecution, concerned A-31 sir” written on them.
Sources confirmed that 15 immigration officers were on duty at the time. Two of them told this correspondent that they approved the boarding passes only because they saw the note “OK from prosecution, concerned A-31 sir.”
One officer acknowledged that the passengers had “B1” category Turkish visas—usually valid only for those with Schengen, UK, or US residency, as per Turkish government rules.
However, none of the 30 passengers met that requirement.
The investigation revealed “A-31” refers to “Alpha-31,”— which is a wireless call sign for the officer-in-charge (OC) of immigration at the HSIA.
Sources confirmed that due to the passengers’ low profiles and suspicious visas, a few officers had initially hesitated to give the clearance.
Then visa checking officer “Juliyet 1” (call sign) SI Rahiatul Jannat was called as per the rules for verification of their travel documents.
She took all the passengers to OC Immigration, Additional Superintendent of Police Mimtanur Rahman, and later on his instructions, wrote “OK from prosecution, concerned A-31 sir” on the boarding passes of all the passengers.
An immigration officer said they were under pressure to complete the task. However, after the necessary clearance, all 30 passengers flew to Turkey at 6:40am.
Who is eligible for a Turkish e-visa?
Dhaka Tribune contacted 13 travel agencies listed under the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA). None processed Turkish e-visas.
“We mostly work with Middle East visas. Turkish e-visas are tricky,” said Mansur Ahmed Kamal of Akash Bhraman.
Mohammad Bablu from goFLY Limited explained: “Only travellers with valid Schengen, UK, or US visas—or residents in those countries—qualify for Turkish e-visas.”
A punishable offence?
After immigration, seven passengers were stopped by National Security Intelligence (NSI) officers at the boarding bridge.
One officer noticed the mismatch in the visas and discovered a boarding pass for Egypt.
“I reported it to the prosecution officer,” the NSI official said.
That day was VIP movement in that time at airport, so all NSI Officers and other airport officers were bit busy that time.
He said it was around 6:15am and their flight was at 6.40am. However, the flight was slightly delayed and probably left at 7:10am.
He added: “I told those passengers that you cannot travel with this visa. And I told the prosecution officer that releasing these passengers by writing ‘OK’ on their boarding passes is a punishable offense.”
The victims told Dhaka Tribune that brokers had charged Tk8 lakh to Tk18 lakh per person for the visas. They also took some of the money in advance.
When asked how such low-profile passengers cleared immigration and who the “A-31 sir” mentioned on the boarding passes was, SI Rahiatul Jannat said: “Our OC sir is aware of the matter. I’m not authorised to comment on this.”
Although she admitted to being present during the immigration of these 30 passengers, she said she was not allowed to say anything about how and under whose instructions the “Ok” was written on the boarding pass.
When contacted by phone, OC Immigration and Additional Superintendent of Police Mimtanur Rahman hung up. This correspondent attempted to reach him multiple times until 3pm on Wednesday, but the calls went unanswered.
Later, SI Hafiz, who was present as the prosecuting officer that day, was called several times till 3pm on Wednesday. He too did not answer the phone.
The three officers were on duty during the C-shift, which ran from 2pm to 10pm on Wednesday. They were also scheduled for the night shift that followed.
Since the OC’s office is located inside the airport, there was no opportunity to meet him in person for comments. Moreover, the entry pass required to access his office is issued by the OC himself.
Regarding the matter, DIG Immigration Md Moazzem Hussain said: “We have already started working on the entire issue. At this stage, we cannot say anything more.”
Also, regarding the “Ok from prosecution, concerned A-31 sir”—he said: “We are currently working to check this matter.”
“However, we do not have any process to check Turkey's e-visa on our system yet. Therefore, we cannot check whether they are fake,” he added.
When asked, I learned from talking to immigration officers that the officers check the passenger's history and whether they match the visa criteria and seal them at immigration.
In that case, out of 30 passengers, not even one matched the visa criteria.
So how come not even one was stopped at immigration? He said: "You are right. That is why we are working on this issue."
Longest nights of their lives
One of the passengers, Rabiqul Islam Shipon, said: “We had documents for travelling to Egypt and Libya, and we hid them on the broker’s advice. When Turkish police beat three of us, we handed everything over to them.”
Nayan Kumar Shil said: “We were terrified. They shouted at us in a foreign language. A translator eventually arrived, and we said we didn’t know the visas were forged.”
Jewel Akon from Shariatpur recalled: “Those two nights were the longest nights of my life, and it felt like I would never be able to return home. We wanted to enter Europe for work, we wanted to take the risk, but we didn't want to risk our lives.”
Turkish Airlines supervisor Zafar Imam said: “Unscrupulous brokers and agencies booked the tickets with us. We issued two boarding passes with Egypt as the destination and Turkey as transit, only after receiving ‘Ok to board' confirmations.”
SI Mohammad Enayet Kabir Mamun, the investigating officer of the case, admitted limited progress in the matter.
“The victims are withholding information about the brokers. Each has a different broker; mostly, they are not from the same region. We can't advance without full details.”
A case has been filed under Sections 6(1)/6(2)/7/8 of the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act, 2012.
However, this was not the first such incident. It is known that on the eve of Eid, over 50 passengers traveled with Turkish e-visas—none returned.
To human traffickers, this process is a “game.” When successful, they call it "game over." But for the 30 deported passengers, it was a "game dismissed."
