KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Thursday remanded six suspects in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency in a case pertaining to the theft of credit card data through “spoofed calls”.

On Tuesday, the Cyber Crime Wing of the FIA claimed to have arrested the six suspects — Muhammad Kashif, Umair Karim, Noshad Karim, Mehtab Ali, Obaid Akram and Haider Karim — in a raid on a call centre in Block 2, PECHS.

On Thursday, the investigating officer, Ameer Ali Khoso, produced the six suspects before Judicial Magistrate (East) Yusra Ashfaq and requested their physical remand by 14 days for further interrogation.

The magistrate asked from the IO as to why did he not produce the suspects earlier since they were arrested on Jan 7. The IO replied that the suspects were produced earlier before the JM-Malir, but the court returned the police file on the grounds of jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the defence counsel moved an application before the court, seeking to discharge the suspects under Section 63 of the criminal procedure code.

However, the court dismissed the plea and remanded the suspects in FIA custody for two days.

According to the FIR, Nawab Khan, a resident of Saadi Town, moved the FIA against the suspects and alleged that they were running an “illegal call centre” and involved in the theft of “confidential financial data of credit cards of foreign nationals through online scam”.

It further stated that an FIA team had raided the call centre and asked the owner to produce relevant documents, but he failed to produce “any legal or valid documents”.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2025