GUJRAT: The immigration authorities of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claimed on Tuesday to have arrested a passenger involved in the smuggling of mobile phones from Dubai and foreign currency from Pakistan at Sialkot International Airport.

A senior FIA official told Dawn that Shoaib Raza Abbasi, a resident of Sukkur, arrived from the UAE by Emirates’ Flight EK-620 at Sial airport on Tuesday. During interrogation and search at least 20 iPhones were recovered from him.

The passenger said he smuggled mobile phones from Dubai and foreign currency from Pakistan. He said he purchased mobile phones from the UAE and smuggled the same to Pakistan which was evident from his travel history as he travelled for at least 19 times to the UAE from different airports of Pakistan during the current year 2025.

The suspect was handed over to the Gujranwala circle FIA for further legal action.

ARRESTED: The FIA arrested three human traffickers, including a most wanted trafficker with his name in red book.

The arrests were made in Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin districts during a crackdown on illegal human trafficking networks in the region.

An FIA official said a team led by Sub-Inspector Muhammad Nadeem arrested Safdar Bashir whose name was mentioned in the Red Book 2025 at Serial No 82.

He said the arrested trafficker was a nominated accused in 11 cases mostly lodged in 2022 under sections 17/22 EO 1979 and 3,4,6 PSMA 2018.

He was involved in human smuggling to Italy via Libya through sea route without documents.

The other arrested traffickers from Gujrat are Imtiaz Ali and Nazim Ali.

Nazim was wanted in a case lodged in 2018 in which he was accused of sending a citizen to Turkiye via Iran but failed to send him to final destination Greece.

Similarly, Imtiaz had received Rs2m from a citizen for sending him to Brazil but failed to do so.

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2025