FIA foils human smuggling bid, offloads five passengers at Lahore airport

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has thwarted a human smuggling attempt at Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore and offloaded five passengers.

According to an FIA spokesperson, immigration officials subjected one passenger to secondary questioning, which led to the uncovering of an organised plan to smuggle individuals to East Timor and New Zealand through Malaysia.

During the inquiry, officials recovered digital evidence that helped identify four more passengers connected to the same network.

Investigators said a facilitator based in Malaysia was allegedly running the human smuggling operation and arranging the travel of passengers to their final destinations.

FIA officials said each passenger had allegedly paid Rs5 million for the illegal travel arrangement.

The passengers were reportedly instructed to obtain additional travel documents after reaching Malaysia before moving onward to East Timor and New Zealand.

All five passengers were offloaded and handed over to the FIA Anti-Human Trafficking Circle Lahore for further investigation and legal action.