Nagpur woman human trafficked on the pretext of a job in Portugal

After paying ₹8 lakh to Pune-based migration consultancy “We Migrate” for a promised job at a supermarket in Portugal, a Nagpur woman allegedly got trapped in a human trafficking racket.

“The investigation is at the primary stage. We are investigating the claims of the survivor as the crime took place in a foreign country. However, we are yet to find anything to make arrests,” said Pune Crime DCP Gauhar Hasan to The Hindu.

The accused are identified as Pratima Bhati (40), Azhar Shaikh (28), Amit Kumar Jha (42), and Kapil Mishra (45); all four are based in Pune, while the other four accused, including Wamsi (25), Chaitanya (25), Himmat Singh (35), and Anilkumar (35), based in Portugal. 

Police have not arrested any of the accused. The eight accused has been booked under the Section 127(6) (to secretly wrongfully confining a person), 143(2) (trafficking), 308(5) (extortion), 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 318(4) (cheating), 351(3) (criminal intimidation), and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023. 

What does the FIR say?

According to the FIR registered on August 5 at Pune Airport police station. The survivor is a resident of Nagpur, holding a B.Com Management degree, while her spouse has a business of selling Ayurvedic medicines.

According to the survivor’s account, she came across the job opportunity on the Instagram page of the WE MIGRATE company in November 2025 and contacted the company through WhatsApp on January 24, 2026. She met the company representative, Pratima, on February 14.

The agency quoted 11 lakh rupees in exchange for a cashier job at a supermarket in Portugal. The 11 lakh amount included 8 lakh in fees to Pratima and 3 lakh on ticket, visa, living expenses, and insurance. They assured that on a dependent visa, her husband can travel after three months. 

“Pratima showed a copy of the company license registered with the Ministry of External Affairs and also called other recruits working in Portugal, Netherlands, Spain to make it believable. She showed us her Student TRC (Temporary Resident Card) and Work Permit and discussed the job profiles in Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Denmark and Poland with a salary of 1.5 lakhs per month, eight hours of work and two days off in a week, and the work permit will be for three years,” said survivor in the FIR, adding that she paid ₹1 lakh on spot and gave documents likes Aadhar, Passport, bank statements. 

The survivor and her family paid the second instalment of ₹3 lakh on March 5. They went to Hyderabad on March 6 for a visa appointment at the embassy office of VSF Global and received a 90-day multiple-entry visa for France ETATS Schengen Type-C) (May 21 to November 17). Later, she paid two more instalments by March 24 of ₹2 lakh each. 

What happened in Portugal?

On April 17, she booked flight tickets from Mumbai to Madrid (Spain) of ₹36,164. The second accused, Mr. Azhar, gave her the number of an Anil Kumar in Portugal to connect for health and travel insurance, as per the FIR.

Narrating her ordeal after reaching Madrid on June 21, the survivor said, “A person named Vamsi took me to CATS hostel Madrid SOL to stay for a night. The morning bus was deliberately missed, and then we took the second bus 2:30 p.m., reaching at midnight. I stayed for two days in the house of a person identified as Himmat Singh.”

She claimed that the passport was taken and she was asked to pay ₹40,000/- to return the passport. “I was sent to have dinner in Odimera village with an unknown man, whose name was Isma. I was kept at an unknown place for two days along with two other girls: Deepti from Rajasthan and the other was a girl from Haryana. On June 26, she was forced to work at a beer shop for 12 hours. I was forced to work at home as well; that is when I learnt I was sold by Pratima Bhati and her other associates.”

She managed to call her husband and told him the incident. On June 29, she left the place to reach Madrid and arrived in Delhi on July 1. 

Published – August 12, 2026 10:36 am IST