New Delhi, July 7 (IANS) Two travel agents who had issued tickets to 27 passengers with fake visas were arrested Wednesday, police said.

The 27 people were caught Tuesday night at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the capital. They were travelling to Dubai by Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways.

'Rakesh Chopra and Sunil Bisht of Pan Travels had issued tickets to the passengers, promising jobs in Iraq. They were supposed to reach Dubai, from where the concerned Dubai-based agent would have facilitated their movement to Iraq,' a police officer said.

'There could an international network of traffickers behind the racket', police added.

The call centres of the two airlines received a phone call from an anonymous caller Tuesday night, saying that 27 men were travelling on fake visas and that they would attempt to hijack the plane.

'We are looking for the anonymous caller as he could be an important link to reach the mastermind of the racket,' an official said.

Security agencies have denied the men had planned to hijack the plane.

Out of 27 passengers, 15 are from West Bengal, six from Punjab, four from Haryana, one from Delhi and one from Bangladesh, who had fraudulently obtained an Indian passport.

Each one of them paid Rs.1 lakh to Rs.1.8 lakh to the agents, police said.