ABBOTTABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency’s Cybercrime Wing in a successful raid on Wednesday arrested a human trafficker allegedly involved in the Greece boat incident.

FIA sources said that as part of the ongoing campaign against human trafficking mafia, a team arrested the alleged trafficker, Sheryar Ahmed, a resident of Haripur district.

The sources said that the accused was listed at Serial No 82 in the Human Smugglers’ List, and was involved in the Greece boat incident.

They said that solid evidence had been recovered from the accused’s mobile phone, including visas of various countries, invitation letters, and details of foreign agents.

The accused was deported from Cyprus due to illegal travel via boat. He possessed significant knowledge of the illegal land routes (commonly referred to as ‘dunki’) used by migrants for trafficking.

Based on the information provided by the accused, a raid was also conducted at Swat Chowk, Haripur.

However, they said that the mastermind of illegal migration through ‘dunki’ namely Mukhtiyar, a resident of Kotnajibullah, Haripur, was not present at the location. The FIA also recovered significant amount of documentary evidence related to illegal migration along with Pakistani currency of Rs100,000.

The sources said that raids were underway to apprehend Mukhtiyar.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2025