LAHORE, Nov 7: The Federal Investigation Agency claimed on Friday to have arrested nine more human smugglers, including a proclaimed offender, from Gujrat in a fresh crackdown.

Sources said the agency had conducted raids on information provided by a number of people, who had been recently deported from different countries on the charges of travelling on fake documents.

They said the PO had been identified as Karamati, who was wanted in three cases registered with the Lahore passport cell office. Most of the arrested human smugglers had affiliations in and outside the country, the added.

The arrested men, in the meantime, have been shifted to the passport cell police station in Lahore. Some influential people have allegedly reached there for their rescue.

The authorities concerned have not disclosed the names of the other smugglers.

Meanwhile, the FIA have formed more teams to extend operation against human traffickers in the Punjab.

The agency had constituted four teams in September to contact the people, who were deprived of hundreds of thousands of rupees by travel agents on the pretext of sending them abroad.

The authorities have formed two more teams to be supervized by deputy director (passport cell) Tehseen Anwar Shah and deputy director (commercial bank circle) Syed Javed Husain. The former will monitor the drive in the Lahore division and the latter in the Gujranwala division.

A new passport circle police station also has been established recently in Gujranwala to put a check on the travel agents mafia in the nearby areas as well.

The FIA had launched a campaign against the human smugglers about three months ago following the deportation of a number of Pakistanis from Italy, Iran, Greece, Sri Lanka, the USA and Canada. Some Pakistanis had also reportedly died while crossing into the European countries.

The agency have so far arrested 42 human smugglers in different parts of the Punjab.

It is pertinent to mention that the interior ministry had also handed over a list of 850 victims, including deportees from Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy and other European countries, to the FIA during the year to reach out individual travel agents, who had facilitated their travel abroad through illegal documents. About 400 of those people belonged to the Punjab while the remaining to the other three provinces.

According to an FIA official, the crackdown will continue for at least two months more. However, he said, the date could be extended according to the requirement of the operation.

The FIA, he said, was hoping to track down more travel agents involved in this heinous crime with the help of those arrested during the last three months.

He averred that the agency were conducting raids after getting concrete evidence.