Thaindian News

Panaji, Sep 8 (IANS) Former Goa tourism minister Francisco alias Mickky Pacheco and two associates have been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for forgery and cheating, a CBI spokesperson said Wednesday.
In the complaint, the CBI has accused Pacheco and two other persons, namely Pedro Antonio Joanes and Daniel Raymond Fernandes, of sending people to the US using forged documents. The complaint has been filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The CBI has also said that preliminary enquiry had revealed that Pacheco, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator, along with his accomplices during 2007 and 2008 had obtained crew member visas from the US consulate in Mumbai using forged documents.

“The accused persons obtained these crew men employment letters with the help of the ex-minister of Goa after paying hefty amounts,” a CBI spokesperson said in a statement, adding that exhaustive searches and investigations were being conducted in the case.

The former minister used to run a recruitment agency out of Goa, which used to offer job placements abroad, especially on pleasure cruise ships.

This is not Pacheco’s first brush with the law. He has been earlier booked for assaulting government servants on two occasions. Pacheco also faces a culpable homicide and a bigamy case.

When contacted, Pacheco said that he was unaware of the CBI complaint against him.

A media report in a national daily quoting central government sources had said that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, a unit of the US State Department, had told the India government that Pacheco may be involved in a massive immigration and money laundering racket operating out of the US.