LAHORE: The FIA Anti-Corruption Circle Lahore has continued its crackdown against the agent mafia, arresting three agents in an operation outside the Passport Office in Garden Town.
According to FIA officials, the arrested suspects include Nadeem, Muneer Ahmed and Muhammad Amjad, who belong to different areas of Lahore.
Officials said the suspects were collecting money from citizens on the pretext of arranging passports, and were also extracting additional sums by luring citizens with promises of obtaining passports on an urgent basis.
According to the FIA, passports, tokens, bank challans, receipts and other important evidence were recovered from the possession of the arrested suspects.
Legal proceedings against the arrested men have been initiated and an investigation has begun, while raids are being conducted at various locations for the arrest of other suspects.
FIA officials said the scope of the ongoing investigation against the passport mafia has been widened further, and that action will continue against elements facilitating citizens in obtaining passports through illegal means.
The material recovered is evidentially significant. Possession of other individuals’ passports, application tokens and bank challans establishes that the suspects were handling documentation on behalf of applicants — the core activity that distinguishes an agent operation from an individual applying on his own behalf. Tokens in particular indicate control over appointment slots, which is the commodity at the centre of the trade.
The economic logic of the agent market rests on scarcity of appointments. Where demand for passport processing exceeds daily processing capacity, appointment slots acquire value, and intermediaries who can secure them are able to charge a premium above the official fee. The promise of urgent processing is the highest-margin element of that trade, since it is precisely the service applicants are most willing to pay to obtain.
Passport issuance in Pakistan falls under the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports, which operates regional offices across the country. The official fee structure is fixed and published, with separate categories for ordinary, urgent and executive processing, and payment is made through designated bank challans — the same instruments recovered in this case.
The Federal Investigation Agency exercises jurisdiction over offences relating to passports and immigration, corruption in federal departments, and human trafficking. Its anti-corruption circles are specifically mandated to investigate collusion involving federal government employees, which is why cases involving agents operating outside passport offices frequently extend into inquiries about facilitation from within.
That dimension is the more consequential one. An agent operating from the pavement cannot in principle guarantee an appointment or expedited processing unless there is a corresponding channel inside the office, which is typically the direction such investigations take once the initial arrests are made.
For applicants, the practical safeguard remains straightforward: appointments and fee payments are made through official channels, and no intermediary is required to complete the process.
Further raids are under way.
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