The Ambassador to Saudi at that time, Ali Awad Al Aseeri stated, “If any injustice and excess was done to the Pakistani family arrested in heroin smuggling case, the matter would be probed thoroughly and any innocent would not be punished for the crime not committed.” He also added that the real culprits behind the crime should be punished. Similarly, following a raid on a heroin smuggler based in Pakistan and using migrant workers to smuggle prohibited drugs, Major General Abdul Al Jaleel Al Mahdi, the head of the anti-narcotic department at Dubai Police said: “They are taking advantage of poor people to make them smuggle these drugs inside their bodies for as little as US$ 300 dollars.”49 The Pakistani government has failed to provide individual defences and grievance mechanisms for these citizens and no concerted effort has been made to apprehend those who are responsible for controlling this trade. No attempts have been made to identify these migrant worker prisoners as either victims of trafficking in persons or at the very least as not the primary initiators or profiteers behind narcotics operations. No attempts at enacting legislation or forming bilateral agreements that provide protection mechanisms for victims of human trafficking have been made. In this way, those who are themselves victims of heinous crimes such as trafficking, are held responsible as the perpetrators of narcotics smuggling activities. None of the detainees interviewed for this report had any previous criminal record, all had similar backgrounds of low literacy and great economic vulnerability, and all had to go through a series of actors with questionable intent. The system was unable to provide them with information before their departure and similarly unable to offer them aid post their arrest. As a low-wage migrant worker, they possessed little social capital to prevent their exploitation at the hands of experienced, fraudulent agents or as a result of faulty information passed down to them. Examples of high-profile involvement by airline officials, cargo handlers, politicians involved in the transnational drug trade demonstrate how an individual drug mule is the lowest in the hierarchy of drug rings. It is also clear from the list of prisoners named in the petition that the vast majority of victims are low-wage workers. 24