‘The Ernakulam central police on Saturday arrested the chief executive officer and human resource manager of ShadWell’s, a prominent education management company that operates in Infopark, on charges of human trafficking to the US.
The arrested were identified as Tom Baby, the CEO and Suby Kurien, the HR manager. The police said the institution trafficked students to the US using fake certificates, in the guise of attending educational conferences there.
The case had been registered after the American Consulate in Chennai intimated the Kochi police about ShadWell’s attempt to send students abroad.
“ShadWell’s approached the consulate for visa to send four people, Mariyadasan Raju, Ajiv Andrews, Jibosn Thomas and Prince Lopez, all from hiruvananthapuram, claiming they were employees of the institution. However, the consulate had doubts that the employment certificates submitted by the institution were fake”, the police said.
The consulate itself conducted a preliminary probe and found that the certificates were indeed fake and later they handed the case over to the Kochi police. The police suspect that the institution had earlier trafficked several people in the same manner.
Assistant Commissioner of District Crime Records Bureau, Ammos Mammen, is probing the case. The arrested were produced before the court and were remanded in judicial custody.