ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan disclosed on Friday that a drug lord from Myanmar had been issued a Pakistani passport by the country’s foreign affairs ministry in Thailand on the basis of a fake domicile purportedly issued from Khushab before he was brought to Pakistan even though the interior ministry had refused to accept him.

Presiding over a meeting on exchange of offenders, he said Ibrahim Koko, the drug lord, was at present in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The meeting was informed about a scam involving providing help in illegal transfer of dozens of drug barons to Pakistan from at least two countries over the years and release of convicts brought to the country without completing their jail terms.

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Chaudhry Nisar asked the officials scared of drug lords to quit and warned that all those involved in corruption would be put behind bars.

He said an inquiry by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) revealed that Koko was born in Rangoon on Nov 14, 1972 and at the age of 17 he had been brought by his uncle to Singapore on fake documents. He was arrested in 1993 on fake identity and later deported to Myanmar.

Koko later moved to Thailand where he was convicted of drug-related charges. He was recently brought to Pakistan after a fraudulent exercise to prove him a Pakistani national, but was caught by the FIA.

Chaudhry Nisar said that of more than 40 drug traffickers and peddlers brought illegally to Pakistan from Sri Lanka and Thailand, one had undertaken 19 foreign visits after coming to Pakistan. The others proceeded abroad for more than once. Only three of them were in jail and most of them were abroad.

The minister regretted that none of the officials had sought their placement on the exit control list. He said all of them had been brought to Pakistan under an agreement on exchange of offenders. Under the agreement, Pakistani nationals complete a part of the sentence in the country where they are convicted and then brought to Pakistan to complete their remaining term.

A powerful mafia within the interior ministry in collusion with jail authorities and FIA functionaries facilitate them to get freed through fraudulent means to get their share out of the drug money.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2015

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