ISTANBUL – Anadolu Agency - May/18/2016
Some 98 Uighur citizens from China’s Turkic-speaking Xinjiang region were caught with fake passports in Istanbul’s Atatürk
Airport on May 17. The Uyghurs, holding fake Kyrgyz passports, were
detained en route to Saudi Arabia, where they were set to perform the
Umrah pilgrimage.
The passengers arrived in Istanbul from
Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China,
and entered Turkey after passport checks in the international arrivals
terminal. The passengers then bought tickets to Northern Cyprus from the
bureaus of several airline companies at the airport before passing
through passport checks with their tickets.
Four people waiting
in the transit hall, identified only by the initials K.T., A.S., K.A.
and K.R., then gave the Uighurs fake Kyrgyz passports and pre-prepared
boarding passes for Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah.
Police teams
following the group detained the Uighur citizens and the four people who
supplied them with the passports and boarding passes.
The four
suspects waiting in the transit hall received 2,500 euros each from the
Uighur citizens for the passports and $300 for the tickets, according to
initial investigations.
The Uighurs were handed over to
Istanbul Migration Administration officials for deportation, while the
four other suspects were kept in detention.
