KARACHI: Pakistani authorities have arrested 84 people in two separate law enforcement operations attempting to cross illegally by sea into Iran, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said on Saturday, as the country intensifies its crackdown on human smuggling networks.
The agency did not specify why those detained were headed to Iran, though many Pakistanis, particularly manual laborers, seek work in the neighboring country.
The government restricted overland travel to Iran earlier this year amid security concerns in the country’s volatile southwestern Balochistan province.
“Illegal attempts to travel to Iran by sea were thwarted, with 60 suspects arrested,” the FIA said in a statement issued in the morning, calling the development the result of a “major operation.”
The detained individuals mostly hailed from the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, though nine of them were from Gujranwala in the eastern Punjab province.
“The suspects were arrested in Jiwani,” it continued, referring to a small coastal town in Balochistan’s Gwadar district, located near the Pakistan-Iran border on the Arabian Sea. “Four cases have been registered against them, and investigations have been initiated following their arrest.”
In a separate statement later in the day, the FIA said it had arrested another 24 people in the same town while attempting to illegally travel by sea to Iran.
“The group included 11 from Gujranwala, seven from Hafizabad and six from Sheikhupura,” it said, naming three cities in the eastern Punjab province and adding that initial investigations suggested they intended to move onward from Iran to other countries.
The arrests come amid a broader government push against human smuggling, which has led to a series of deadly boat tragedies over the past two years. These included shipwrecks off Greece in mid-2023, a December 2024 disaster near Greece’s coast, a January 2025 sinking off Morocco and two separate capsizings off Libya in early and mid-2025.
On the Iranian side, authorities have also ramped up action against undocumented people, fueled in part by security concerns tied to its military conflict with Israel. Tehran has cited espionage risks and militant infiltration, particularly in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan province.
