FIA crackdown on gang transporting Pakistanis to Hong Kong from China

Islamabad:The Anti Human Trafficking Circle (AHTC) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), during the crackdown on the human smuggling racket involved in transporting Pakistanis from China to Hong Kong, have arrested overall nine gangsters including four from Islamabad and five deported from China, the FIA said Friday.

The crackdown against the human smugglers, was initiated on the direction of the Prime Minister office when the Chinese law enforcement agencies rounded up 35 Pakistanis on different occasions in border areas being tried to smuggle from China to Hong Kong during the previous weeks and the Chinese law enforcement agencies informed the Pakistani government about the illegal activities of Pakistani gangs, consequently, the government of Pakistan referred the case to FIA authorities directing to take action against the International gang involved in human trafficking in China, the FIA said.

The Director General (DG), FIA Mohsin Hassan Butt referred the case to Director AHTC to constitute a team on capable and professional officials. A team headed by Deputy Director AHTC, Saim Sultan who initiate onslaught against the racket and arrested two key actors of the racket identified as Asif mehmood and Bilal Hassan, the FIA said and added that Asif Mehmood was in China when the operation was initiated, his name was put on ‘stop list’ and arrested from Islamabad International Airport when he landed back to Islamabad, while, Bilal was arrested from Islamabad on the information of the chieftain of the international racket, Asif Mehmood.

The FIA conducted raids on the information of the arrested persons and recovered passports, fake invitation letters and other counterfeit documents from the hideouts of the racketeers. The FIA team, on the information based, arrested two more suspects and the active of the racket identified as Fawad Alam Khan and Mohammad Abubakar from Islamabad and recovered fake documents and other relevant manuscripts from their custody.

The officials engaged in the investigation of the case said that Fawad Alam was responsible for preparing fake documents by modifying visa invitation letters issued by different, while, Abubakar was assigned to keep contact with Asif Mehmood and Bilal Hassan who were in contact with the international human traffickers across the border in Hong Kong and responsible for transportation of Pakistani people being travelled on fake travelling documents.

The FIA said that racketeers were so sneaky that they give proper training to the people to satisfy the immigration staff at airports before leaving for Hong Kong. During the investigation, the FIA investigators found the bank accounts of the human traffickers, keeping millions of dollars in their accounts; the FIA said and added that their banks accounts have been seized from which heavy transaction to different countries were noticed.

The FIA investigators said that the circle of investigation of the high profile cases has been widened to break the international human trafficking network causing humiliation for the country.