Islamabad, April 3 (IANS) Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has confirmed the arrest of a most wanted human trafficker on FIA red book who was involved in the June 2023 Greece boat capsize, local media reported on Friday. The accused was earlier serving as a constable in Pakistan’s Elite Force.
In January, the arrested trafficker had resisted and attacked a FIA team during a raid conducted in Majra Shumali village of Pakistan’s Gujrat district. Police had booked him for attempted murder and other changes, Pakistan’s leading daily Dawn reported.
According to a senior FIA official, the most-wanted human trafficker Waqas Ali, alias Waqas Butt, was arrested by FIA Composite Circle, Gujrat. The accused is mentioned in the red book of 2025 and is a proclaimed offender involved in several FIA cases.
Dawn quoted the FIA official as saying that the accused was directly connected to the Libya shipwreck in 2023. He extorted around Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 3 million from each of the affected families by promising to send them to Greece through illegal sea routes from Libya. The accused is a former Elite Force constable dismissed from the service in 2023 from Gujrat police.
Last month, FIA offloaded two passengers from a plane at the Multan International Airport over their alleged attempt to use umrah visa for entering Europe.
A FIA spokesperson said that immigration staff took action at Multan airport during routine screening of outbound passengers. Two Pakistani nationals – Sikander Alam and Noor Islam – were heading to Saudi Arabia for performing Umrah. However, initial probe raised suspicions, prompting officials to refer them to secondary screening for detailed profiling, Dawn reported.
During further probe, the officials found Moroccan visas affixed to the passports of Alam and Islam. After questioning, Sikander Alam and Noor Islam said that their actual destination was Spain instead of Saudi Arabia.
The FIA officials said the latest case aligns with recent alerts issued by FIA headquarters about the rising cases in which people try to use Umrah visas as a cover to enter Europe illegally through Morocco.
After the findings, both passengers were offloaded from the plane and taken to the FIA Composite Circle in Multan for further probe.
–IANS
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