GUJRAT: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claimed on Friday to have traced and arrested a “key financial handler” of the Libya-based main suspect running the network involved in illegally sending Pakistanis abroad, who later went missing in the recent boat capsize incident off Italy, recovering around Rs10 million from him.
Besides, at least five different cases have also been lodged in three different police stations of FIA Gujranwala Zone, against the human traffickers involved in sending the missing Pakistanis abroad.
A senior FIA official told Dawn that the main suspect has been identified as an agent, Luqman, alias Hakeem, who belongs to Phalia tehsil of Mandi Bahauddin district. The suspect had been based in Libya for the last couple of years, he added.
He claimed the entire financial and logistic network of that human trafficker had been unearthed and more arrests of his local operatives were expected in a few days.
Gujrat FIA circle have lodged the first case pertaining to the April 2026 boat tragedy on the report of brother of a missing Pakistani national, Iqbal Arshad of Ranmal Sharif, Phalia tehsil, Mandi Bahauddin district.
The complainant, Bilal Arshad, says that the human smugglers extorted Rs2.1 million from him on the pretext of sending his brother to Italy on an employment visa. However, he says, instead of sending his brother through a legal route, he was sent abroad through illegal channels and subsequently, he went missing after the boat he boarded capsized off Italian coastline.
The FIA registered FIR No 133/26 under sections 17/22 of the Emigration Ordinance, 1979, read with sections 3 and 6 of the Prevention of Smuggling of Migrants Act (PSMA) 2018 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) against the suspected agents/human smugglers.
Meanwhile, an FIA Gujrat team claimed to have arrested a suspect, Tahir, from Gojra in Toba Tek Singh district, who ran the financial network of the Libya-based traffickers, including Luqman.
The team says they recovered Rs9.97 million from the suspect, which he had allegedly extorted from the families of the victims.
Besides, at least two cases have been lodged with the FIA’s Gujrat police station, followed by one each in Gujranwala and Sialkot, against the human traffickers involved in sending the boat tragedy victims abroad.
FIA sources says that the cases have been registered on the complaints of the family members of different missing Pakistanis hailing from Gujranwala and Gujrat regions.
Gujranwala FIA Director Muhammad Bin Ashraf says that the FIA’s field staff has so far gathered the data of at least 15 missing Pakistanis belonging to Gujranwala region, whereas one of the survivors was also from this region.
As per initial information, the survivor has been moved to a shelter for immigrants in Italy, he says.
However, he says that nothing has officially been shared so far by the authorities concerned about the missing Pakistanis.
He adds the FIA has also initiated several inquiries in connection with the boat incident occurring off Italy.
He says that the unearthing of the financial network of the human traffickers linked to the fresh case is a major achievement, hoping it will lead to smashing such gangs. He adds that more developments are expected in this regard as several bank accounts allegedly linked to money transactions abroad have also been identified.
It is learnt that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has tasked the Pakistani embassy in Italy to coordinate with the Italian authorities to smash the human trafficking gangs there.
Meanwhile, local sources say that one of the youths who went missing in the latest boat incident, belonging to Mandi Bahauddin, had gone to Saudi Arabia along with his mother on the pretext of performing Umrah. However, his mother later returned to Pakistan alone and the youth proceeded to Libya, they say.
They say that the youth took his mother along to dodge the immigration officials, as they often offload the young “Umrah pilgrims” hailing from Gujranwala and Gujrat regions.
Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2026