Four men, including the superintendent of the Passport Office in Harbanspura, were caught red-handed by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Anti-Corruption Circle in a raid that exposed an organised scheme to defraud citizens seeking passports.
Superintendent Abdul Ghafar was arrested alongside former contract employee Ansar, security guard Zubair Ashfaq, and agent Mubashir Mahmood. Investigators say the group ran a racket inside and outside the passport office, luring unsuspecting applicants with promises of expedited or illegal passport processing in exchange for cash.
FIA officials confirmed a case has been registered against all four suspects and that investigators are now working to trace the extent of the network, including other individuals who may have facilitated the fraud from within the office or through outside agents.
Officials said the crackdown would continue until everyone involved in the racket is held accountable. The bust follows a similar enforcement push by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who raided the Passport Office in Garden Town, Lahore, days earlier.
That inspection led to the removal of a deputy director and the suspension of several other officials over their alleged links to agent networks operating within passport offices, signalling a wider crackdown on corruption across the department.
