Rangers recover two foreigners from drug smugglers’ captivity

Two foreigners being held in forced captivity by international drug smugglers for the past few months have been rescued by the Sindh Rangers, while their three abductors have also been arrested.

A spokesperson for the Rangers said on Saturday that the force had received credible information that criminals had abducted some foreign nationals and hidden them in a house in Defence Housing Authority.

He added that Rangers began a surveillance of the said locality and also used the help of technical assistance to find the hideout. Eventually, they conducted a raid on a bungalow on Khayaban-e-Muhafiz, Street No-33, DHA, and after facing resistance managed to arrest three suspects who were later identified as Waseem Baloch, Naeem Rabbani and Fahad Shabbir.

During a search of the house, the Rangers safely recovered two foreign nationals identified as Moses Joseph, who belongs to Tanzania, and a Nigerian national, Frank Anekabook.

Weapons including a submachine gun with a magazine and 19 bullets, a bullet-proof jacket and an SMG pouch were also seized from the house.

During interrogation, Waseem told the officials that he has been involved in the smuggling of narcotics within and outside of Pakistan and was also a partner of notorious drug smuggler Sabir Baloch, who has contacts with international smugglers. According to the spokesperson, Waseem had been living at the DHA bungalow, which was Sabir’s property, since 2014. Waseem told officials that in July 2017, Sabir had made a deal with Yaseen, a smuggler who lives in Tanzania, and had sent him 12 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine.

The suspect said Yaseen had sent his relative Moses [one of the recovered foreigners] to Karachi as a guarantor that he would pay Sabir. However, Yaseen did not send Sabir the money because of which Waseem had kept Moses detained in the house for the past seven months. Waseem said the other foreigner, Frank Anekabook, had also come to Karachi for a drug deal and he had been holding the Nigerian in custody on Sabir’s orders at the same house. He said he had handed over the foreigners’ passports and other documents to Sabir.

The Rangers spokesman said the other two detained suspects – Naeem Rabbani and Fahad Shabbir – were involved in drug peddling and were close associates of Waseem. All three suspects were handed over to police, while the recovered foreigners were handed over to the FIA since they didn’t have their travel documents on them.