RAWALPINDI: Immigration staff of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) at the Islamabad International Airport on Wednesday arrested three passengers intending to travel to Europe via Saudi Arabia on fake documents and also rounded up a travel agent involved in human trafficking.

According to sources, the arrests of the passengers came about when the check-in of passengers for PIA flight PK-753 was underway. As the passengers approached the FIA immigration counter, their travel documents were found fake which led to their detention.

The passengers were traveling to Saudi Arabia on an Umrah visa.

The accused were from Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin and Bahawalpur.

The FIA said during search, fake Brazilian passports, Spanish resident cards of different people, Pakistani and Spanish passports were recovered from the baggage of the passengers.

According to FIA’s preliminary investigation, the passengers obtained travel documents from an agent after paying Rs14.5 million.

The agent who was also traveling along with the passengers, was detained on the identification of the passengers. The accused were shifted to FIA’s Anti-Human Trafficking Cell for further investigation.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2024