New Delhi, Feb. 8: The CBI has unearthed a racket that loaned Indian passports to Afghan nationals to emigrate to European countries.

Initial probes have revealed that most beneficiaries were Afghans who were given passports in different names. They flew out of the country and had the passports delivered back to the racketeers, either in person or through courier.

Hemant Gandhi, Amit Kumar Khatri and Dheeraj Kumar Bansal were arrested on Friday and 277 passports and other travel documents seized during recent raids in 10 places in Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

The passports had been issued by the passport offices in Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Jalandhar, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Bhopal. Three visa stickers of a European country, fake pass books of a nationalised bank, and nearly 3,000 passport-size photos of various people were also seized.

A CBI official said the large number of photographs was a pointer to the scale of the operations. The bureau suspects the complicity of officials of the Delhi passport office and travel agents.