The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested a man from Rawalpindi for fraud and recovered blank cards, a magnetic strip reader, a skimmer and other devices from his possession, FIA Director Shakeel Durrani said in a press conference on Friday.

Saqibullah,a resident of Rawalpindi, was arrested for making fake credit cards and stealing credit card information, as well as blackmailing women using their private videos.

The FIA director said that the accused was in contact with an Indian hacker, Sorev, as well as Canadian, Nigerian and Italian hackers. He was running a skimming fraud racket in Rawalpindi and Islamabad with their assistance. He also sold data to the hackers for money, Durrani said.

He said that the FIA was investigating the role of the accused's family members, as he used their CNICs and fake credit cards in their name for his illicit operations. The FIA is also looking for other accomplices.

A first information report has been registered against the accused, he said.

Incidents of ATM skimming fraud have made headlines recently, with Habib Bank Limited confirming that over Rs10 million had been stolen from 559 of its customers' accounts through compromised cards.

The transactions had been traced to Indonesia, China and other countries, an HBL official revealed.

The FIA suggests that the use of “obsolete technology” by banks for ATMs and decades-old security systems employed at ATM booths had made them an easy target for an “organised foreign group”.