ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities offloaded 23 passengers traveling from Karachi to Malaysia to seek employment on visit visas, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said on Friday, as the country ramps up its crackdown on illegal immigration.

The development is part of Pakistan’s continuing effort to curb illegal immigration and human smuggling. Pakistan reported a 47 percent drop in illegal immigration to Europe this year, with more than 1,700 human smugglers arrested.

Authorities said this week 66,154 passengers were offloaded from Pakistani airports in 2025 so far compared to last year’s figure of 35,000.

“The passengers were traveling to Malaysia on flight number D7-109,” an FIA statement said on Friday.

“The passengers were planning to go into hiding after reaching Malaysia,” it continued, adding they “admitted that they were traveling to Malaysia under the cover of visit visas to seek employment.”

The statement said the passengers, hailing from Peshawar, Lower Dir, Mardan, Swat, Bajaur and Bannu in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as Gujrat in Punjab and Karachi in Sindh, were in contact with agents who were helping them seek illegal employment in Malaysia.

The FIA said the passengers were carrying insufficient funds and failed to show the amount required to cover visit visa expenses.

It added they had not submitted the mandatory bank statements needed to obtain Malaysian visit visas.

All the arrested passengers have been handed over to the FIA Anti-Human Trafficking circle in Karachi for further verification and legal action.

Pakistan intensified action against illegal migration in 2023 after hundreds of people, including its own nationals, lost their lives while trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach European shores in an overcrowded vessel that sank off the Greek coast.

Earlier this week, the FIA offloaded three passengers at Karachi airport who were attempting to travel to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on forged documents.

In September, the FIA released a list of more than 100 of the country’s “most wanted” human smugglers as part of its ongoing nationwide operation, identifying major hubs of trafficking activity across Punjab and Islamabad.

Earlier in December, Pakistan’s interior ministry announced to roll out an AI-based immigration screening system in Islamabad from January next year to detect forged travel documents and prevent illegal departures.