Man accused of trafficking people via ‘dunki’ route held

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a key accused involved in trafficking a man to the United States via the dunki route, the agency said on Sunday.

The accused, identified as Gagandeep Singh alias Goldie from Tilak Nagar area of New Delhi, was nabbed from the Capital in connection with the case on Sunday.

The trafficking victim, a resident of Tarn Taran district of Punjab, was sent to US via the dunki route in December 2024. He was deported to India by the US authorities last month. “The victim had paid around ₹45 lakh to the accused agent for the illegal immigration, as per his complaint,” the agency said in a statement released on Sunday.

As first reported by HT on March 20, the anti-terror probe agency has taken up two cases to investigate organised human trafficking gangs and agents based on the questioning of several deportees repatriated by the United States (US) authorities earlier this year.

The victim sent by Goldie was deported to India by US authorities on February 15 following which he filed the complaint against the accused. The case was originally registered by the Punjab Police and taken over by NIA on March 13.

The probe by NIA revealed that Goldie, who did not possess any licence/legal permit/registration for sending people abroad, had used the dunki route to send the trafficking victim to US via Spain, Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. “Donkers/associates of Goldie had even beaten up and exploited the victim, besides snatching the dollars he was carrying, during the arduous journey,” the agency said.

Since January 2025, 388 Indian nationals termed “illegal immigrants” by the US have been deported to India. Of these, 333 Indian nationals were deported directly from the US in three special flights that landed in Amritsar. The remaining travelled via Panama to India last month.

The Punjab Police has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe such networks and has registered over a dozen cases so far.

NIA has agency-to-agency contact with law enforcement agencies in the US and Canada and it will seek information from them about the agents based in those countries, officials familiar with the probe said.

Other than NIA, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is also conducting a separate probe into illegal immigration by Indians to the US and Canada using the student visa route.

Apart from the 388 deported from the US so far this year, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has informed the Indian government that there are 295 more individuals detained in their custody with final orders of removal, external affairs minister S Jaishankar informed the Rajya Sabha in a written response on March 13, adding that the Centre is verifying their nationality.