Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) avoided a heavy fine after immigration officials arrested two Pakistani nationals on Friday for trying to leave the country using fake travel documents.
“Had they managed to sneak through the immigration net here and got caught at the destination airports, PIA would have suffered over €2000 in fines per case,” said Inspector Afzal Niazi, the immigration shift incharge at Benazir Bhutto International Airport (BBIA).
Ajmal Karim, a resident of Gujrat, was arrested after immigration officials found his Spanish resident card to be forged. Karim was taken into custody for questioning at the airport.
During the initial interrogation, he confessed to obtaining the fake card from Spain during his stay there before returning to Pakistan last year. Karim crossed the border into Spain illegally by using the land route through Iran-Turkey-Greece with the help of professional human smugglers.
He stayed in Spain for nearly eight years and only returned to Pakistan after failing to get immigration there. Before his return, he obtained the fake Spanish resident card to attempt to enter another Schengen country.
This time, Karim decided to go for a taste of Italy and was trying to board PIA flight PK-749 to Milan when he was caught. He was handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Anti-Human Trafficking Circle (AHTC) in Rawalpindi for further investigation and legal action.
In another such arrest, immigration personnel at the BBIA arrested Muhammad Ahmed, a resident of Lahore, while trying to board PIA flight PK-781 to Toronto, Canada on a fake Pakistani passport and a boarding pass unlawfully obtained from a Canadian national.
The boarding pass was in the name Tahir Khan, a Canadian national, who had swapped his boarding pass with Ahmed at the VVIP lounge of the airport. Ahmed had a Pakistani passport in the name of Tahir Khan which he tried to use along with the boarding pass.
However, the passport was found to be forged by immigration officials who stopped Ahmed from proceeding to the passengers lounge. On questioning, he told the officials that he paid Khan CAD $15,000 to swap boarding passes. Khan left the VVIP lounge after swapping the passes.
Ahmed was also sent to the AHTC for further investigations and legal action for swapping boarding passes and obtaining a fake passport.
FIA sources added that Khan has been booked for his attempted facilitation of illegal immigration and that they are looking for him.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2012.
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