Offloading not to curb genuine travel, claims FIA chief

ISLAMABAD: Federal Inv­es­tigation Agency Director Ge­­neral Dr Usman Anwar on Mo­­nday said that offloading was a “lawful, preventive, and protective measure” used only where credible risk indicators exist.

“The objective is to facilitate lawful travel while protecting the country’s citizens, safeguarding human lives, co­­untering organised criminal networks, and preserving the country’s international reputation,” the FIA chief said while talking to reporters here.

Dr Anwar said the FIA has intensified intelligence-led passenger screening at international airports, bringing illegal migration through Malawi to “zero” and cutting irregular flows to the EU by 64 per cent in early 2026. He said the measures target human smuggling, trafficking and visa abuse, and are meant to protect people from “exploitation, detention, deportation, trafficking, and loss of life on dangerous migration routes,” not to restrict genuine travel.

He said his agency has identified Belarus, Cyprus, Central Asian states and certain Eastern European transit corridors as routes “increasingly exploited by organised human smuggling networks” for onward illegal migration to Europe, he said. Malawi also emerged as a high-risk transit hub in 2025. Criminal facilitators, the DG said, lure vulnerable people with false promises of jobs, education, settlement and legal migration.

The FIA’s Annual Risk Ana­lysis Report 2025 listed Sou­theast Asian cyber-trafficking, organised migrant smuggling networks, and transit migration through Eastern Europe and Central Asia as critical threats. It also noted a rising trend of migration and deportation to Central Asian countries among young residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, besides hotspot districts of Punjab.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2026