A woman has been fined $40,000 after she admitted to having a Guyana passport.
Priya Sewraj, 30, of Lyng Street, Charlestown, Georgetown, was arraign-ed on Friday in front of Georgetown Magistrate Leron Daly.
After she was read the charge Sewraj admitted that on July 13, 2012, at the Central Immigration and Passport Office Georgetown, for the purpose of procuring a new passport, she made a false statement by signing to a written declaration that she was Bibi Shazia Khan, and that she had never been issued a Guyanese passport, knowing same to be false.
According to the police, Sewraj, the holder of a Suriname passport, was at the Consular Section of the US Embassy for the processing of her Visa application when her fingerprints were scanned and they returned a positive fingerprint match for Bibi Shazia Khan. As a result, an investigation was conducted.
The woman reportedly told police that when she was 15-years-old, a family friend told her mother that they had applied for a US visa for both her (Sewraj) and her sister. But after traveling with the document, they were intercepted by US authorities and they were told that the Visas were unlawfully obtained. The documents were subsequently cancelled.
Sewraj then applied for a US visa for herself but due to the incident, she was referred to a man who told her that she needed a new passport. She subsequently acquired a new birth certificate and a new passport.
Given a chance to address the court, Sewraj said that she only wanted to obtain a Guyanese passport. The woman was fined $40,000 or in default, 12 months in jail.
