A Sri Lankan national transiting at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on his way to Germany on a forged Schengen Area visa was picked up by the National Immigration Agency’s (NIA) special cross-unit task force yesterday and deported to Sri Lanka.

According to the agency, the man had arrived in Taiwan on a China Airlines flight from Singapore bound for Frankfurt, Germany, purportedly on a business trip.
The NIA task force noticed a discrepancy in his Schengen Area visa, the agency said. After detaining him and checking the visa with the Borders Affairs Corps, the visa was determined to be fake, the agency said.

When questioned, the man said he sought to make a new future for himself in Frankfurt, Germany, due to the instability in Sri Lanka in the wake of its civil war.
Sri Lanka concluded a 26-year-long civil war against rebel group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May 2009.

The man admitted to contacting human trafficking syndicates for his travel documents, adding that he had picked up his boarding pass to Germany after the syndicate arranged for his transport to Singapore, the agency said. The man said he had assumed that his passage through Taiwan during the summer season would be overlooked due to the high number of travelers passing through, the agency said.

After consulting the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office, the Border Affairs Corps was authorized to deport the Sri Lankan, it said.(Taipei Times)