Thailand has announced stringent measures against Pakistanis travelling on forged documents.

The Thai Consulate in Karachi has issued revised guidelines for travellers, stressing the importance of submitting authentic documentation, including valid airline tickets and hotel reservations, for e-visa applications. Any individual or travel agency found submitting falsified documents will face severe penalties, including blacklisting.

This move follows an October incident where Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) apprehended two individuals at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport for attempting to travel abroad with counterfeit visas.

During the operation, the FIA immigration team arrested two passengers including a woman, identified as Nazar Abbas and Umme Salma, who were found to have fake visas affixed to their passports. As per the FIA spokesperson, the woman suspect was attempting to travel to Iraq on flight number IA-432, carrying a counterfeit Iraqi visa, while Nazar Abbas was bound for the Turks and Caicos Islands on flight TK-709 with a fraudulent Cuban visa

Also, for the first time in two decades, the FIA has issued a travel advisory aimed at combating human trafficking.

The FIA Headquarters has sent a letter to Deputy Directors of Immigration across the country, instructing strict monitoring of passengers from 15 countries, nine cities in Pakistan, and two airlines

These include Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Senegal, Kenya, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Mauritania, Iraq, Turkiye, Qatar, Kuwait, and Kyrgyzstan, which have been identified as transit hubs for human trafficking to Europe.

The advisory mandates enhanced monitoring of passengers aged 15-40 travelling on FlyDubai and Ethiopian Airlines.