KARACHI — Pakistan’s cybercrime agency has arrested 273 people, including more than 100 women and 42 children under 18, in a raid on a Karachi call centre accused of cheating foreigners over the phone.
The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) raided the Voxtron call centre in PECHS, off Shahrah-e-Faisal, on Tuesday. Additional Director Shahzad Akbar gave the details at a press conference on Thursday. Officers seized 339 laptops, 152 mobile phones and four computer units.
Akbar said the workers used fake names and fake online IDs to call people abroad. Several different IDs were found logged into single laptops. He said the centre got hold of people’s personal details and credit card numbers and took money out of their accounts. Investigators also found signs of money laundering and hawala transfers, including through JazzCash. People based abroad and some merchants were part of the network, he said, and retired people were among the victims.
Akbar said about 350 scam call centres are working in Karachi, and this company was one of the three biggest. It had been raided before and had started the same work again. A case has now been registered against the whole network, he said.
The arrested people were kept at the call centre itself, which the Sindh Home Department declared a sub-jail, and were produced by video link before Judicial Magistrate (East) Gulraiz Memon. The court gave the agency two days of physical remand for nine key suspects. Women and suspects under 18 were ordered released on bail, and the rest were sent to jail on judicial remand.
A defense lawyer told the court that more than 70 of those arrested were under 18. The agency’s own count is 42. Families of the workers protested after the raid, and traffic on Shahrah-e-Faisal was disrupted.
The charges are allegations at this stage. The agency says its investigation is continuing.
