KARACHI, May 27: The FIA’s Passport Circle has unearthed a gang of human traffickers and arrested one its members and 19 job seekers.

The alleged human smuggler, Nadeem Mehmood Khan, of the Omest Travel Agency, was earlier booked for human smuggling in 2002, but was bailed out. He was again arrested on Tuesday.

Briefing reporters at his office, Passport Circle’s deputy director Mohammed Malik said that the gang had trafficked over 600 people to various countries during the past one year.

He said their modus operandi was that they initially send the job seekers to the countries where entry visas were granted easily. Later, they were handled over to other agents in those countries.

The FIA official said that on a tip-off the Passport Circle arrested the intending illegal emigrants, who were issued tickets by the Omest Travel Agency for a Qatar Airways flight.

The intending emigrants, who were all Pakistanis, said that they were proceeding to Colombo from where they were promised a journey to Greece for lucrative jobs by the agents.