On 18th March 2026, Greek Police arrested five Pakistani nationals from Crete island for running a network of work Visas of fake companies and fake government papers. Thereafter, Greek authorities have started scrutiny of database of all Pakistani nationals who have come on work Visas in last two years.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi embarked on a diplomatic sprint across Europe, meeting Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi in Rome on February 23 and then leading an official delegation to a six-nation conference in Warsaw on February 25-27. The official messaging was carefully calibrated: Islamabad is committed to tackling illegal migration, wants formalized legal pathways, and has reportedly achieved a 47 percent reduction in irregular departures to Europe.
Beneath the diplomatic optics, however, a more uncomfortable reality persists. Pakistan is one of Europe’s most significant sources of irregular migration, its nationals are involved in transnational criminal networks across the continent, and the European Union (EU) recently adopted the most far-reaching overhaul of its return and repatriation architecture in nearly two decades. Islamabad’s charm offensive is a reactive exercise in damage control – an attempt to reframe a deep structural failure as a manageable policy conversation.
According to Frontex data, Pakistan is now ranked fifth among the countries with the highest number of illegal migrants in Europe, surpassing traditional migration hubs such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and placing Pakistan alongside conflict-affected states like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Pakistanis made nearly 5,000 attempts to enter Europe illegally in 2024 alone.
Eurostat estimates that approximately 2.2 million Pakistanis reside in Europe, of whom only around 398,000 hold legal residence. The largest community outside the UK is in Italy, with approximately 200,000 migrants of Pakistani origin, followed by Germany with 140,000, and an estimated 60,000 in Greece.
The human cost of this migration has been severe. At least 83 Pakistani nationals died in Mediterranean crossing accidents in 2025 alone. Families in districts like Gujranwala, Gujrat, and Sialkot are selling possessions and borrowing heavily to fund irregular journeys, despite knowing the risks. That these are not the poorest households in Pakistan speaks to the depth of the socioeconomic and governance failure driving emigration from the country. People with means are still choosing to take the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea rather than choosing Pakistan.
The Warsaw conference brought together interior ministers from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, and Lithuania, alongside Naqvi. Participants discussed strategies to curb illegal immigration networks and reviewed plans to dismantle cross-border human trafficking operations. The countries agreed in principle to explore providing official employment opportunities for Pakistani workers through legal channels.
Poland’s presence at the table is telling as it has passed legislation suspending the right of migrants crossing its Belarusian border to apply for asylum – a measure driven partly by a documented surge in Pakistani nationals using the Belarus route as a backdoor into the EU. Polish officials have been explicit that illegal crossings by Pakistani nationals through the Belarusian border have increased significantly in recent years. Yet Naqvi framed Pakistan as a partner in solving a shared problem, a characterization that conveniently obscures Pakistan’s role in generating that problem in the first place.
Italy’s offer of 10,500 work visas for Pakistani nationals deserves some scrutiny. European partners are pursuing legal pathways as a strategy to combat illegal migration, the assumption being that regularized channels will reduce irregular flows. However, it is not that simple, and in countries where legal migration corridors have been opened without robust enforcement, parallel irregular channels have continued. Given Pakistan’s entrenched smuggling networks and the enormous profit margins involved, there is little evidence that a few thousand work visas will meaningfully deter the ‘illegal’ industry.
Pakistan’s diplomatic messaging glosses over a pattern of criminal activity by its nationals in Europe that goes well beyond irregular entry. In March 2026, Greek police in Crete dismantled a criminal network with a clear hierarchical structure. At its core were five individuals from Crete, but a second tier consisted of seven Pakistani nationals operating overseas who targeted vulnerable individuals in Pakistan, promising legal employment and residence permits in Greece. Prospective workers were induced to pay large sums to travel to Greece, thereby accruing debt to the network. A total of 21 people were arrested, including five of whom were from Pakistan. Police seized more than €200,000 in cash, and the ring is believed to have charged each Pakistani migrant €10,000 for fraudulently secured work visas, then forced them to make monthly payments of €1,000 to pay off the debt. The network transferred over five million euros out of Greece to Pakistan.
This was not an isolated case. In July 2025, Europol supported Greek, German, and US law enforcement in dismantling an Athens-based migrant smuggling network whose members consisted mostly of Pakistani, Iranian, and Turkish nationals. The pattern is consistent: Pakistani nationals, in collusion with local actors, are embedded in the operational infrastructure of human smuggling and document fraud networks across Southern and Central Europe.
In December 2025, the EU Council reached an agreement on a new Return Regulation, introducing a European Return Order that member states must enter into the Schengen Information System, enabling cross-border enforcement of return decisions. The regulation also permits longer detention periods and longer entry bans. Importantly, it creates a framework for return hubs, arrangements with third countries to facilitate repatriation. This regulation is set to take effect in June 2026, alongside the broader EU Pact on Migration and Asylum.
The practical implication for Pakistan is significant. Every year, hundreds of thousands of non-EU nationals are ordered to leave the EU for irregular status, yet just over 20 percent actually do. The new rules are designed to close that gap. Pakistan will increasingly be on the receiving end of accelerated repatriation orders — a reality that Naqvi’s summit diplomacy cannot forestall.
This matters economically in ways Islamabad cannot afford to ignore. Remittances from EU countries to Pakistan stood at $395 million in February 2026 alone, a 15 percent year-on-year increase. In January 2026, EU remittances to Pakistan reached $480 million, up 36 percent year-on-year. A meaningful proportion of these flows originates from the undocumented Pakistani workforce embedded in European economies. Remittances account for approximately 9.4 percent of Pakistan’s GDP, making any sustained disruption to European inflows a genuine macroeconomic risk.
If the EU’s new repatriation framework begins to bite, and Europe moves from issuing return orders to actually executing them at scale, those numbers will contract. Pakistan’s current account stability, already precarious, depends substantially on remittances as a buffer. A country that exports its governance failure through illegal emigration is increasingly finding that Europe intends to send it back. There will be long-term financial consequences for Pakistan.
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