A Sri Lankan trying to travel to the UK on a fake passport has been arrested along with a German for exchanging their boarding passes at the Mumbai international airport as part of a suspected trafficking deal.

Jenarthanan Sasanantham, 22, the Sri Lankan, and Santosh Thangaratnam, 36, the German citizen, had exchanged their boarding passes for Kathmandu and London, respectively, at an airport toilet on Monday after passing security check and immigration.

Their plan was sunk by an alert airline employee who spotted discrepancies in Sasanantham's boarding pass and passport. Both have been handed over to the Sahar police, who have registered a case of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy. They are investigating whether a trafficking ring was at work.

"A probe is on to find out from where the passengers managed to get hold of a fake British passport and how they got in touch with each other," said DCP (Zone VIII) Dikshit Gedam. Variations of the fraud involving exchanging boarding passes have been noticed at the city airport in recent years.

Sasanantham, the police said, was keen to go to the UK and pursue a career. The two met at a five-star hotel in Santa Cruz on April 9.

"As planned, Sasanantham had a fake British passport (in Thangaratnam's name), and cleared immigration check at the Mumbai airport and got a boarding pass to fly to Kathmandu. Thangaratnam got a boarding pass to travel to the UK.

They went to a toilet and exchanged the boarding passes and continued. The German did not face any hurdle and flew to Kathmandu. However, the Sri Lankan was caught when wing in-charge Rajesh Chaurashiya spotted that the passport immigration stamp showed 'D4.019' and that on the boarding pass was 'D1.240'," said an officer of the Sahar police station.

In a complaint, immigration officer T N S Srinivasulu said the forgery was clear after they contacted immigration officials at Kathmandu. Thangaratnam was deported to Mumbai on Tuesday. (The Times of India)