KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday claimed to have offloaded 23 passengers bound for Malaysia at the Jinnah International Airport.

The agency said the passengers were attempting to travel on visit visas with the intention of seeking illegal employment abroad with the assistance of agents. They were prevented from departing after it was found that they lacked sufficient funds and had failed to provide the mandatory bank statements required to cover the visit visa expenditure.

“The FIA Immigration conducted an action at Karachi Airport and offloaded 23 passengers who were supposed to go to Malaysia,” a press statement said.

It added that they were going to Malaysia on flight number D7-109. The held passengers were in contact with different agents. As per the initial probe, the passengers have “confessed” that they were going on a visit visa to get “illegal” employment in Malaysia.

They belonged to Karachi, Lower Dir, Madran, Swat, Bajaur, Bannu, Gujrat and Peshawar.

During immigration profiling, it transpired that they had “insufficient” cash as they could not provide the required money to be spent on a visit visa there. Besides, they had also not submitted the mandatory bank statements. They were travelling along with an agent, Mohammed Awais.

The FIA said the agent revealed that visit visa arrangements were made by one Waseem Khan with the help of another agent named Stephen while payments to this effect were made through bank accounts.

The suspects were handed over to the FIA anti-human trafficking circle for further investigation.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2025