FIA Stops 16 On Iran Route As Human Smuggling Crackdown Faces Scrutiny

LAHORE/KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested two suspected human smugglers and intercepted 16 people who were about to set out for Europe overland through Iran and Iraq, in the latest operation of a nationwide crackdown that is drawing praise abroad and growing scrutiny in the courts at home.

The agency’s Anti-Human Trafficking Circle in Karachi said it raided several locations in Karachi and Balochistan and named the alleged agents as Baber Shahzad and Muhammad Imtiaz Malik. Investigators say the pair arranged travel and logistics for the group in exchange for substantial payments. Cases have been registered under the Prevention of Smuggling of Migrants Act.

The migrants were bound for the route known as the dunki, a chain of illegal crossings that starts in Balochistan and is meant to end in Greece or Italy. They are in custody. The agency has not said whether they will be charged or treated as witnesses.

On October 6 the agency arrested two proclaimed offenders in Multan accused of selling jobs in Saudi Arabia that did not exist. The same day, immigration staff at Karachi airport took a woman off a flight to the UAE after she told them, by the agency’s account, that a man in Dubai was forcing her to travel for sexual exploitation. Last month five people were held in Faisalabad over overseas job and study scams, and ten in Lahore and Sialkot.

The scale of the wider effort was set out in June, when FIA Director General Dr Usman Anwar briefed the National Assembly’s interior committee. Officers took 35,459 passengers off flights in 2024, 39,786 in 2025 and 22,136 in the first months of 2026. Deportations of Pakistanis from other countries fell from 68,877 to 57,560 over the two full years, and deportations involving forged documents dropped from 281 in 2024 to 13 this year.

Citing the European border agency Frontex, Dr Anwar said irregular migration from Pakistan towards Europe fell 26 percent in 2025 and 64 percent in the first two months of 2026. He said the Vienna-based International Centre for Migration Policy Development had acknowledged Pakistan’s efforts. Screening was the only way to prevent illegal migration, he told lawmakers, and “a free-for-all cannot be allowed”.

He also conceded that part of the problem had been inside the agency. Since the Greek boat disaster of 2023, in which hundreds of Pakistanis are believed to have drowned, 132 inquiries have led to 68 major and 36 minor penalties against officials who colluded with smugglers or ignored procedure. In February, three immigration officers were arrested at Islamabad airport for allegedly clearing passengers in return for bribes.

The same screening has put the agency in front of judges. In May the Lahore High Court ruled that citizens holding valid visas and tickets cannot be stopped on vague suspicion and ordered officers to record their reasons and the passenger’s answers in writing. It declared unlawful the offloading of a man who was flying to Nigeria to visit his brother, noting the financial loss and distress he suffered.

A report to the Senate that month listed complaints against immigration staff that included an alleged demand for a Rs500,000 bribe at Lahore airport, and said 85 officials had been penalised for misuse of authority. In July the Lahore court called travel abroad a legal right. On September 24 the Islamabad High Court went further and questioned the agency’s legal authority to offload passengers at all.

The agency’s answer is Standing Order 02/2026, issued on June 1, which for the first time gives an offloaded passenger a documented right of appeal and review.

International assessments are mixed in the same way. The US State Department’s 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report, published this week, describes the FIA as the government’s lead agency with 20 anti-smuggling circles, but records observers saying that victims often do not trust law enforcement or cooperate with investigations for fear of retaliation.

The International Organization for Migration’s chief of mission in Pakistan, Mio Sato, said in May that migration should be a choice and not a necessity. The Pakistan Migration Report launched at that event, by the Lahore School of Economics, found Pakistanis among the ten largest nationalities entering Europe irregularly and concluded that tighter legal routes are pushing people towards dangerous ones.

That danger has rarely been greater. The overland route now crosses a country at war, with Iran under attack since February and Pakistan itself mediating between Tehran and Washington. This is The Lahore Times assessment, not the agency’s, but anyone paying to walk that road is paying to enter a conflict zone.

There is a further gap in the record. The accused in recent cases are said to have taken between Rs165,000 and Rs700,000 from each victim, the fees of local sub-agents. The agency’s Red Book of most wanted smugglers listed 156 names in its 2023 edition, 71 of them from the Gujranwala region alone. One was arrested in Gujrat in April. How many of the rest have been caught has not been published.

Nor is Europe the only destination. The agency told parliament that 24,922 Pakistanis travelled to Cambodia between 2024 and 2026 and that 3,312 did not come back, many believed to be trapped in scam operations or bonded labour.

Arrests will not remove the demand. The Pakistani passport has slipped to 183rd in global rankings, and this week the prime minister asked the visiting head of the International Labour Organisation for help with international certification of Pakistani skills, the kind of route that leads to lawful work abroad.

The agency advises citizens to verify an agent’s licence before paying anything and to report fraud to the nearest FIA circle.