All the 12 accused have been granted bail in this case.

Arrested on January 16, the accused — Sarfaraz Sherali Virani (27), a resident of Bandra and a flight purser with Virgin Atlantic airlines — allegedly posed as the husband of a Gujarati woman, Rameelabain Jyotabhai Chaudhary, to secure a visa for her from the US consulate and also helped send her to the US.

While Chaudhary paid the alleged kingpin of the racket, Altaf Shaikh and his associate a total of Rs 22 lakh, Virani was paid Rs 2 lakh for posing as Chaudhary’s husband, the police claimed. Sarfaraz’s lawyer, Ayaz Khan said, “ The police case is that Virani’s name appears in the visa application form of Chaudhary as her husband. But nowhere in his own visa application form has he mentioned that Chaudhary is his wife. We argued that his own passport and visa are not forged, and therefore, the charge of forgery does not apply.”

The police claimed that Virani is the boyfriend of former Jet Airways airhostess Aliyah Rizvi, who was arrested on November 26.