GUJRAT: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claimed to have arrested two human traffickers, including the suspect who was allegedly involved in illegally sending abroad some of the victims of last year’s boat tragedy off the Libyan coast.

A spokesman for the agency says that the suspect, Aamir Butt, a resident of Gujrat, was wanted in connection with the investigation into the human trafficking scam linked to the incident in which illegal immigrants boat had capsized.

He says that Butt’s name was on the FIA’s list of the most wanted human traffickers of the last year in Pakistan.

He says the suspect has been arrested for allegedly receiving Rs2.2 million from the family of a man whom he had illegally sent to Libya last year to ultimately reach Italy in Europe.

However, he says, the man later died in the boat tragedy off the Libyan coast, along with dozens of other persons, most of them belonging to Gujrat in Pakistan and areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

The Federal Investigation Agency has also arrested another alleged human trafficker, Iftikhar Ahmed, for receiving Rs680,000 from a man to illegally send him to Greece.

A case has been registered against the suspects.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2024