Thiruvananthapuram: The Ernakulam First Class Magistrate Court has pulled up the state police for having returned the fake passport of Alex C. Joseph who was arrested on the charge of smuggling in 500 luxury cars from Gulf countries to India through various ports, including Kochi.

Coming down heavily on the state police, the Judicial First Class Magistrate A. Ijas yesterday ordered a high-level probe and directed his office to serve a copy of the order to the Director General of Police to start the investigation at the earliest.

The court observed that returning the fake passports to Joseph who is in jail is shocking.

Arrested in Hyderabad

Joseph was sent to Kochi police custody by the magistrate on Monday in the fake passport case. He was held by Immigration Department officials in Hyderabad a couple of weeks ago while trying to escape the country using the fake passport.

The Hyderabad police had handed over the passport to Tiruvalla police who gave the passport back to Joseph at Adoor Taluk Hospital where he was taken for a preliminary check-up.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence had earlier issued a lookout notice. Joseph had smuggled luxury cars under different names through various ports, including Kochi, from 1997, disguising them as used cars.

The cars imported are priced between Rs2.5 million (Dh179,679) and Rs12.5 million. Toyota Lexus, Mercedes Benz, Toyota Land Cruiser, Rolls Royce, BMW and Mitsubishi Pajero were some of the cars imported. Joseph sold the cars to customers in Kerala, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi.

Background check

He faked documents to import cars in the name of Keralites working as domestic helpers in the Gulf. The fraud came to light when revenue intelligence checked the backgrounds of the people who imported these cars, and found that none of them could afford such luxury.

Meanwhile, Kochi police investigating the passport case found that he had used four fake passports, issued in the names of different persons, to smuggle the cars into the country.

"We tracked down five passports being used by him, of which one was his own. Of the other four, three were issued in the name of Aby John, and one in the name of Thomas Mathew," the police said.

The place of residence mentioned in the passports were in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and New Delhi.