02 October 2004	Saturday	16 Shaban 1425

PESHAWAR, Oct 1: The passport cell of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested a fake travel agent on the charges of human smuggling and seized six passports and other bogus documents from his possession, an FIA official said.

Inspector Shahid Ilyas said that an FIA team raided the Saad International Travels in the cantonment on Friday and arrested its owner Abidullah Syed. The FIA recovered six Pakistani passports given to the accused by some people after reading advertisements in local press, medical examination certificates and some other bogus documents, the inspector who headed the raiding team said.

He was running the travel agency without government's approval, the FIA official said and added that the accused had given the advertisement through which he asked the people to apply for various jobs in the Defence Ministry of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

During the preliminary interrogation, the accused disclosed that he was working on behalf of a recruitment agency in Islamabad, which was sending the people the Gulf countries on exorbitant rates other then the amount fixed by the government, Mr Shahid said.

Meanwhile, Director of the FIA Malik Maveed, in a statement has asked the people to be aware of these fake recruitment agents and contact the department concerned for jobs abroad.