Surinamese caught with fake Guyanese passport at US Embassy fined

A 30-year-old Surinamese woman who made a false declaration to obtain a Guyana passport – which she used to apply for a US visa, and was denied same – was on Friday fined $40,000, or in default 12 months in prison.
That woman, Priya Sewraj, a housewife of Lyng Street, Charlestown Georgetown, appeared before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts to answer a charge detailing that on February 13, 2012, at the Central Immigration and Passport Office in Georgetown, she signed a written declaration that she was Bibi Shazia Khan and that she was never issued with, or previously held, a Guyana passport, knowing same to be false.

The court heard that Sewraj, who was born in Suriname and is the holder of a Suriname passport, appeared at the Consular Section of the US Embassy in Georgetown on June 29, 2021 to complete the process for her visa application.

Her fingerprints were scanned by the electronic system, which returned a positive fingerprint match for Bibi Shazia Khan – who was born on August 5, 1987, is the holder of a Guyana passport, and had appeared at the Embassy on August 13, 2012.
As a result, an investigation was launched. Sewraj was contacted and told of the allegation against her, and she gave a written statement under caution. She detailed that when she was 15, her mother’s friend had applied for a US visa for her and her sister, but after travelling, they were intercepted by officers of the US Embassy, who informed them that the visas were unlawfully obtained. The visas were subsequently cancelled.
The woman said she wanted to apply again for a US visa, but because of the previous incident, she was referred to a man whose name she could not recall. She said the man advised her that she would need a new Guyana passport to make a visa application at the US Embassy.
The man, she added, provided her with a new Guyana birth certificate bearing the name Bibi Shazia Khan, whose date of birth was recorded as August 5, 1987.
On the birth paper, Khan’s mother’s name was recorded as Serojunie Khan Dwarka, and her father’s name as Sooltan Khan. Sewraj stated that the man then told her to sign her name as Bibi Shazia Khan on the passport application form.
The man took her to the passport office on July 12, 2012, where she completed the application process and a passport was issued to her, which she later used to apply for the US visa, but was denied. The man collected the passport from her, and she made another visa application last year using her Suriname passport. (G1)