ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) detected 330 agents in 2005, who were involved in smuggling Pakistanis to Greece on forged documents, FIA Director-General Tariq Pervez said here on Monday.

Some have been taken into custody and the agency is looking for others in order to proceed against them under the law, he said.

The agency has compiled a computerised database to pursue the cases registered against the alleged human traffickers.

Tariq Pervez said illegal immigration had declined in 2005 compared with the previous years due to the steps taken by the Ministry of Interior, including the establishment of an Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) that was appreciated by the international community.

IATF has vastly improved the efforts to curb human trafficking, as in the past the FIA with 12 offices in the country was not able to combat up to the desired extent the network involved in this heinous crime, he said. The task force is made up of FIA, police, Frontier Corps, coast guards and levies.

The FIA chief said traffickers used to send migrants through Pakistan-Iran border to other countries. Since the IATF embarked upon its mission last year, the number of human-trafficking cases had drastically gone down, he said.—APP