By Kim Se-jeong
The Korea Immigration Service (KIS) said Monday that it was looking for 72 Indian citizens who went into hiding in July after they came to Korea to participate in a conference for Christian pastors.
According to the KIS Special Investigation Unit, the missing people are mostly Hindu farmers from the southern city of Chennai, and they used fraudulent documents to gain invitations to the conference in Busan in July. The International Youth Fellowship (IYF), the religious group that organized the event, sponsored the invitees for C-3 visas.
C-3 visa holders can stay for up to 90 days for tourism or to undergo medical treatment, participate in religious or sporting events, or visit their families. The Indians’ C-3 visas have not yet expired.
There were originally 77 Indians who vanished after being granted C-3 visas to attend the conference.
“We have caught five of the 77 Indians who went into hiding,” Kim Doo-yeol, a KIS official, told The Korea Times. They were sent back to India after being caught in automobile parts factories near Busan, Kim said.
“We’ve heard there are many Indians like them in South Gyeongsang and North Gyeongsang provinces, and that’s where we focus our resources,” Kim said.
The Indian Embassy in Seoul said it was unaware of the case.
The IYF reported the Indians’ disappearance to the Korean Consulate in Chennai, which then referred the case to the immigration office in Seoul.
The incident raises doubts about the country’s screening system for C-3 visa applicants, who are required to submit letters of invitation from host organizations.
Kim said one of the Indians indicated under questioning that each person in the group had paid a local broker 7 million won ($7,000) for the fraudulent documentation.
This is not the first case involving the IYF. In July 2011, 10 Nepalese guests also vanished shortly after their arrival.
In June, the Ministry of Security and Public Administration issued a letter of invitation to a Bangladeshi participant in the United Nations Forum on Public Administration, who later disappeared. He was caught by immigration officers and repatriated.
Last week, three Nepalese athletes disappeared from the Asian Games Athletes’ Village.
“Sporting and other international events have become a popular route for those seeking to work illegally here,” Kim said.
One way of stopping such incidents might be to penalize the host organizations.
Under the current law, host organizations can be punished only if they knew that the invitees would disappear, according to Kim.
As of August, 40,501 visitors had not returned home after their C-3 visas had expired, according to the KIS.