A high-ranking Pakistani diplomat allegedly was involved in a scam involving the granting of visas for Europe. The diplomat in question, Israr Husain, was allegedly involved in issuing visas to Pakistani citizens for bribes. The complaint was lodged by a senior Pakistani official, also in charge of issuing visas.
Husain has held important positions in the past, such as assistant secretary for Europe at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad and ambassador at the diplomatic office in Prague (position from which he had to resign following corruption charges).
This latest accusation reinforces the suspicion that a group of Islamabad diplomats are managing a global scam of fake passports and visas for Europe. Similar episodes, in recent years, have occurred, with some frequency, in various European countries, to the point of having the European Parliament intervene to sound an alarm on the role that Pakistan would play in the "sale" of visas for the Union European.
In 2020, MEP Dominique Bilde accused Pakistan of leading a racket to grant falsified passports and visas. As early as 2012, the then High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in Islamabad, Adam Thomson, had defined Pakistan "World leader in visa forgery". As evidence of this, in 2021, 4.000 Pakistani citizens were reported for trying to obtain passports using forged documents.
Although the details of the current scams have not yet been disclosed, there is documentary evidence that would frame Husain as a facilitator for the issuance of illegal visas and residence permits in EU countries such as Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Spain. It has not yet been ascertained whether the Pakistani diplomats stationed in the aforementioned countries were involved in the offenses (the ongoing investigations would suggest so), however the circumstantial evidence of the bribes paid would be in the possession of the Government of Islamabad.
As previously written, it is not the first time that Husain has been accused of being the mastermind of human trafficking to Europe. As ambassador to the Czech Republic, Husain has already been subject to corruption allegations.
One of these accusations involved having received a bribe of 1,5 million rupees from a group of Pakistani singers to "facilitate" their entry and stay in Prague. In the circumstance it would seem that Husain, once he received the money, did not respect the agreements. This led to a complaint by the Czech ambassador to Pakistan, resulting in the opening of an investigation which however led to Husain's acquittal. The official in charge of the investigation would be a colleague of Husain.
In May 2020, the Bosnian State Attorney's Office was investigating a considerable number of visas (around 3.000) issued to Pakistani citizens to travel to Bosnia. The investigations were conducted by the Border Police which suspected that Pakistanis were using the Bosnian territory as a collection point and then sorting people to other European destinations.
In 2021, Pakistan's then prime minister, Imran Khan, berated his diplomats for their "colonial" attitude after the country was forced to recall its ambassador and six other diplomatic staff from Saudi Arabia.
In his tweet, Khan accused his country's personnel at the Kuwait diplomatic headquarters of taking bribes and creating "wrong documents" on purpose.
In the recent past there have been other cases where diplomatic personnel from countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe have been discovered to be in contact with the global trafficking racket. In 2020, South African investigators uncovered an illegal immigration network run by a Pakistani diplomat stationed in Zimbabwe. A Pakistani official from the Harare embassy, Waqas Ahmad, was found guilty of illegally smuggling three Pakistani citizens into South Africa via the border town of Beitbridge (Ahmad was later expelled from the country by order of the Zimbabwean government).
South African media reported the involvement of several other diplomatic staff members in the immigration racket and other criminal activities. The most striking case was that of the resale of diplomatic cars. This serious abuse of diplomatic privilege has severely tested relations between the two countries. An investigation found that senior officials, including Pakistani Ambassador to South Africa Mazhar Javed and former Deputy Ambassador Adnan Javed, were involved in the lucrative racketeering. The Pakistani government, instead of taking action against the ambassador and his staff, has chosen to initiate a counter-trial against the staff of the South African embassy in Islamabad.
The latest denunciation of the role of Pakistani diplomats in the European visa scam is only the “tip of the iceberg”, also given the sordid precedents of officials in the smuggling of weapons, counterfeit currency and human beings.
Sources:
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/978662-high-ranking-pakistan-diplomat-a...
https://hindupost.in/crime/high-ranking-pak-diplomat-at-the-heart-of-hum...
https://www.nation.com.pk/02-Aug-2022/senior-foreign-office-officer-face...
https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/pakistan-furto-mille-visti-dalla...
https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2022/aug/01/high-ranking-pakistan...
https://greekcitytimes.com/2022/08/09/european-security-undermined/
