India's premier investigative agency is investigating diplomats and foreign service officers in Britain, Australia and Canada as part of an unravelling immigration scandal involving the country's diplomatic missions abroad.

The probe is just one of several unrelated immigration rackets busted over the last few weeks around the world which were running human pipelines into Canada.

The arrests and investigations spanned the globe from British Columbia to Korea and Southeast Asia, the Punjab and Papua New Guinea.

Arrests were also made in the Philippines.

In India, at least three separate investigations are underway involving human smuggling rackets with links to Canada.

The latest case came to light after India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) asked the Criminal Bureau of Investigations (CBI) to take over a case that is likely to expose a huge immigration racket allegedly involving its own officials in the United Kingdom and operatives of an Indian intelligence agency.

The Ministry believes that a syndicate run by the kingpins of the racket, its own officials and spies of the Indian intelligence agency who worked in the consular sections of the Indian High Commission in London and deputy missions in Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh were helping illegal immigrants move abroad.

This follows arrests by Scotland Yard of several Indians involved in immigration fraud and human trafficking.

British officials said that such an organised and widespread racket could not flourish without the connivance of Indian officials. The "scam" involved forging passports using ones reported to be lost in the UK and often purchased by racketeers for a hefty amount.

Indian media said the number of cases involving forged passports was in the 'hundreds' and that the CBI officials were expanding their probe to include diplomatic missions in Australia and Canada.

The CBI is also involved in the investigation of top Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi who is alleged to have been behind a criminal outfit bringing illegal immigrants to the United States and Canada under the guise of being musicians and dancers for his overseas shows. (See www.asianpacificpost.com, 2003-10-23, Bollywood stars in migrant scam).

In an unrelated case, Punjab police have arrested the masterminds of a syndicate that was using Indian dance girls to trap youths wanting to migrate to Canada.

The girls posed as Canadians looking for husbands in their home villages promising their victims visas to Canada within a year of the sham marriages.

Police estimate the gang had collected tens of thousands of dollars from gullible youth after fake visas, passports, and marriage certificates bearing the seal of the Ludhiana deputy commissioner were found in Punjab banks.

The case is being investigated with the help of officials at the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi.

In British Columbia, two major police investigations have busted two human trafficking pipelines.

The first involved a gang that was bringing dozens of women from Thailand and other Asian countries into Canada.

The women were then forced to pay off their debts by working as prostitutes.

So far, 20 people have been arrested. The gang was operating out of massage parlours in Vancouver, Richmond and Calgary.

Police are now hunting for the alleged mastermind: thirty-six-year-old Anthony Lee who has a Vancouver area address and is believed to be driving a 2003, silver Nissan Pathfinder with Alberta plates YHT-999.

The second case involved two men who were smuggling illegal aliens from Korea into the United States via southeastern British Columbia.

Jae Kyun Jung, 29, and Sang Bong Park pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court this month after a joint U.S.-RCMP operation tracked the gang trying to smuggle 12 Koreans across the border near the Porthill Port of Entry outside of Creston.

Jung was the guide, or smuggler, for the group.

Several of the illegal migrants said they paid US$300 to US$4,500 each to be brought into the U.S. from British Columbia after flying into Vancouver. Investigators now are looking into the connection between the gang and various travel agencies operating outside the U.S. diplomatic missions in Korea.

In Papua New Guinea, a government investigation has revealed that human traffickers were using the impoverished South Pacific nation to smuggle illegal immigrants into Australia, the United States, Canada and New Zealand.

Foreign Minister Rabbie Namaliu said the internal government probe uncovered "rampant" corruption among immigration and foreign ministry officials, the sale of passports and the abuse of visa, citizenship and labour laws to help people smugglers.

Namaliu told parliament the schemes were used by foreigners or corporations for people smuggling, to help foreigners work in the country and for "fast-money" making investment schemes.

His investigation uncovered 52 cases of passports being sold to foreigners so they could gain entry to countries like Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand, where they might otherwise have been denied entry using their own passports.

Only two of 16 officials named in the report have been charged and six sacked.

The remaining 10 could not be sacked because of lack of evidence.

Earlier this month, Papua New Guinea's passport-making machine and immigration database were stolen from the foreign affairs office. Police believed the robbery was an inside job.

The global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International recently rated Papua New Guinea as the world's 15th most corrupt country.

In the Philippines, Immigration officials at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport said they have foiled attempts to use the country as a transit point for human trafficking with the arrest of two alleged human smugglers and five Chinese nationals.

The country's Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said Jacques Wei, a Frenchman, and Wang Xiao Lingzi, a Chinese woman, were arrested recently while they and their five Chinese companions were about to board a Philippine Air Lines flight for Hong Kong.

Police believe the gang is part of a larger group helping smuggle Chinese nationals to the United States Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea and European countries.