SAHIWAL: The FIA unearthed a satellite gateway exchange running illegally in a house for the last five years at village 95/6-R.

The agency also recovered 11 gateway satellites, hundreds of SIMs, 12 dishes, 20 receivers and about a dozen laptops worth over Rs3 million.

The FIA’s Cyber Crime Unit, Lahore, detected the illegal satellite gateway exchange in Sahiwal through its monitoring system.

A joint team of the FIA, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and police raided the house on Tuesday evening.

The joint team, led by FIA Sub-Inspector Najeebullah Niazi, found only guard Ghani in the house who was taken into custody.

The team took possession of all gadgets being used in running the illegal gateway exchange.

The SI said the FIA had traced two main culprits Waqas and Almas, adding that a Faisalabad-based party was running the illegal gateway.

He said the financier and the owner had also been traced and their names were not being disclosed for security reason. He said both the accused would soon be arrested. ​

PTA official Iftikhar Ahmed said that illegal gateways were running mostly through satellite and it was technically impossible to track their locations through the existing system.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2016