He was the master of disguise until he wasn’t.
Jayesh Patel, 32, reportedly wanted to board an overnight flight from New Delhi to New York, so he posed as an 81-year-old to pass through security at Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Around 10:45 p.m. on Sept. 8, a man — in a wheelchair and decked out in a white outfit with dyed grey hair and beard — approached security, who asked him to stand for a search, CNN reports.
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“He was posed as if he was very old and incapacitated,” a senior official with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Shrikant Kishore told the publication, adding that he was unwilling to stand.
“Our screener asks if he would stand with support,” Kishore continued. “He reluctantly stood up.”
The officer noticed that his hair roots were black. He also was having trouble maintaining eye contact.
He was carrying the passport of an 81-year-old man from Delhi named Amrick Singh, born in 1938.
“He was definitely not 80 years old,” Kishore said. “His skin was of a younger person.”
CNN reports that the man eventually told security his name. While it isn’t known what has happened to Patel since the incident, multiple news sources confirm that he was detained after presenting his fake passport.
Kishore also told CNN he didn’t know the reason for the strange impersonation.
Just a few days prior, two people were apprehended by the CISF at the Delhi airport for reportedly trying to use fake tickets to enter a terminal area, New India Express reports.
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One man, Raj Dhonota, was found just as he was leaving Indira Gandhi International Airport’s third terminal and was carrying a U.K. passport.
According to the local publication, Dhonota used a cancelled ticket to enter the terminal to say goodbye to his wife and son.
Later that day, Ubaid Lal was apprehended for the same offence.
The publication reported at the time that the two were booked for criminal trespass.
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