ISLAMABAD, Jul 20 (APP):Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Immigration wing on Sunday foiled an alleged attempt to use an Umrah visa as a cover for illegal migration to Europe, offloading four passengers at Islamabad International Airport and referring them for further legal action. An FIA official told APP on Monday that the passengers were intercepted during secondary profiling before boarding Fly Jinnah flight 9P700 bound for Saudi Arabia on Umrah visas. …
FIA foils illegal migration bid via Umrah visa, offloads four passengers at Islamabad airport
ISLAMABAD, Jul 20 (APP):Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Immigration wing on Sunday foiled an alleged attempt to use an Umrah visa as a cover for illegal migration to Europe, offloading four passengers at Islamabad International Airport and referring them for further legal action.
An FIA official told APP on Monday that the passengers were intercepted during secondary profiling before boarding Fly Jinnah flight 9P700 bound for Saudi Arabia on Umrah visas.
During scrutiny of their travel documents, immigration officials found that one of the passengers had previously been deported from Türkiye for illegal entry. In addition, Azerbaijan visit visas recovered from two passengers further strengthened suspicions of an organised illegal migration attempt.
The official said a forensic examination of the passengers’ mobile phones revealed that two of them planned to accompany their mother to Saudi Arabia under the pretext of performing Umrah, after which she would return to Pakistan while they intended to continue their journey illegally to Europe.
He said chat records recovered from the mobile phones indicated that the suspects were planning to travel through the Baku–Serbia route and had remained in contact with agents linked to a human smuggling network. The recovery of Azerbaijan visit visas also corroborated their suspected links with the network.
The four passengers were offloaded from the flight and handed over to the Anti-Human Trafficking Circle (AHTC), Islamabad, for further legal proceedings.
The official said further investigation was underway to identify other members of the human smuggling network and determine the full scope of the illegal migration plan
