LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) will investigate how dozens of people impersonating lawyers managed to slip into Europe after securing visas through ‘unauthorised’ use of letterheads of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) of Pakistan.

The SCBA has filed a complaint with the FIA director-general, seeking a comprehensive investigation into the unauthorised use of its letterheads for the illegal transportation of ‘non-lawyers’ and non-members of SCBA abroad (Europe) through fraudulent acquisition of visas.

According to the SCBA, an unsigned letter was issued to the Austrian embassy, fraudulently usi­ng its letterheads to facilitate the entry of 39 individuals into Europe under the impression of being advocates and SCBA members in June last year.

“Upon taking the charge of the SCBAP in Nov 2022, the 25th executive commi­ttee was informed regarding the grave crime of human smuggling that took place during the tenure of its predecessors (24th executive committee of SCBAP Oct 2022). Dur­ing an internal inquiry, it was revealed that the Austrian embassy was approached for grant of Schengen visas to the members of this association and the correspondence was made on SCBAP letterheads,” it said, adding that a list of 39 individuals on its letterhead was also discovered.

“This list was issued fraudulently to aid human smuggling. It had a reference number that had already been used before. In August 2022, an email was received in the SCBAP office, Lahore, being forwarded from the Lahore High Court Bar Association wherein it was transpired that the said email was sent by the Austrian embassy to it (LHCBA) for verification of this list of 39 individuals.”

In the complaint to the FIA, SCBAP Secretary Muqtedir Akhtar Shabbir said it was suspected that most of the individuals whose names were included in the list of 39 had managed to slip in Europe as they did not return.

“Given the gravity of the situation and potential risk to the SCBAP’s reputation, we request the FIA to conduct a thorough probe into the matter to identify the persons who misused the SCBAP stationery, prepared a list of 39 persons, and carried out human smuggling.”

The SCBAP secretary also urged the FIA to uncover those who impersonated advocates for the purpose of human smuggling.

The SCBAP also called for an investigation into the entire correspondence with the Austrian embassy regarding visa issuance, including with the LHCBA, and the persons/company that managed the air tickets and itineraries of those persons who escaped.

It is pertinent to mention that the staff of SCBAP registry branch Lahore had vehemently denied the said list of 39 individuals and stated that neither any such list was prepared by it nor it handed over official stationery to anybody.

An FIA official told Dawn on Saturday that it had received the SCBAP complaint and would initiate the probe into the matter.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2023