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

LAHORE, Jun 18 (APP):The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Immigration Lahore foiled a human smuggling attempt at the Allama Iqbal International Airport and offloaded five passengers after uncovering a network to smuggle individuals to East Timor and New Zealand via Malaysia.

According to an FIA spokesperson, the operation began when immigration officials subjected a passenger to secondary scrutiny, leading to the discovery of a well-organised illegal migration plan.

The spokesperson said digital evidence recovered during the inquiry helped identify four additional passengers linked to the same network.

Investigations revealed that a facilitator based in Malaysia was allegedly operating the human smuggling network and coordinating the movement of passengers to their intended destinations.

According to FIA officials, each passenger had allegedly paid Rs5 million for the illegal migration arrangement. The passengers were reportedly instructed to obtain further travel documents upon arrival in Malaysia before proceeding to East Timor and New Zealand.

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