Fact-check: Video shows wheat being smuggled from Pakistan to Afghanistan?

Social media posts shared thousands of times claim to show a video of over a dozen trucks smuggling wheat out of Pakistan into Afghanistan.

The allegation is incorrect.

Claim

“The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has been caught red-handed,” reads the caption of a video posted on Twitter, “Wheat is being smuggled from Peshawar to Afghanistan. The rulers are busy with corruption while the people are desperate for bread.”

The clip, which has been viewed more than 157,000 times, was posted on January 8. It has to date also received over 3,000 retweets and 5,000 likes.

The same footage was posted by another Twitter account with the caption that over 20 trucks filled with wheat are being smuggled into neighbouring Afghanistan.

“The government is making money while the people are suffering. This is what the tabdeeli (change) set up gave up.”

Fact

Geo Fact Check spoke to officials from three separate government departments. All three confirmed that the trucks shown in the clip were in fact transporting flour imported from Turkey to Afghanistan via Pakistan, under the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

The trucks were not illegally smuggling wheat from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

Amjad Rehman, a collector of Pakistan Customs (appraisement) at the Torkham border, told Geo Fact Check that the UN’s WFP has been sending aid to Afghanistan through Pakistan.

The process for the delivery of aid, explained Rehman, is that the WFP first asks Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue a no objection certificate (NOC), after which the flour arrives at the Karachi port from Turkey or another country. From there it is sent to Afghanistan through the Torkham border.

“These trucks crossed the border on January 9,” he added.

Rehman also shared a copy of the NOC issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on December 26, allowing the United Nations World Food Program import-cum-export permission for fortified wheat flour, for a period of three months.

An official from the ministry of foreign affairs, who asked not to be named, further confirmed the authenticity of the above document.

Geo Fact Check then spoke to an official from the Federal Board of Revenue in Peshawar.

He also rubbished the allegations on social media and reiterated that around 30 to 32 trucks were legally transporting flour from Pakistan into Afghanistan under the United Nations program.

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