KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday raided the residence of model-turned-actor Nadia Hussain in Defence Housing Authority and seized her cell phone for an investigation into her allegations that she had been asked for a bribe in her husband’s arrest case.

Cyber Crime Reporting Centre Additional Director Shahzad Haider told Dawn that Ms Hussain had levelled bribe allegations against the FIA-Karachi director after the arrest of her husband that she had received a call from a cell phone number, which was not registered in name of the FIA official.

He said that since they needed her cell phone for investigation purposes, they raided her home and seized the phone after getting permission from a court.

In a statement, the FIA stated that Nadia’s husband, Atif Muhammad Khan, was arrested on March 8 in a case relating to embezzlement of funds during his tenure as the chief executive officer of Al-Falah Securities.

Agency says she is facing inquiry under Peca as she ‘hurled unfounded and baseless allegations’

“On March 11, some fraudster using the photo of a senior FIA official as DP [display picture] made a WhatsApp call to Ms Nadia Hussain and demanded a bribe from her. Upon this, when Ms Hussain contacted FIA Karachi, she was alerted that it was a hoax call. She was further advised to report it immediately to FIA Cyber Crime Reporting Centre at Karachi.

“However, she chose otherwise and resorted to her social media account to hurl unfounded and baseless allegations against FIA officials, which is a cognizable offense under the law,” said the statement.

The FIA has initiated an inquiry under the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) 2016 against Ms Hussain. “The inquiry shall soon meet its logical conclusion on merits as per law,” concluded the FIA statement.

While her husband was in custody, Ms Hussain took to Instagram on Wednesday to share a series of videos in which she said a man impersonating a police official had been trying to extort money from her in exchange for her husband being granted bail, Dawn.com reported.

“Regarding the case, time and the courts will tell,” she said, adding that she had been cautioned by her lawyers not to say much about the case. After praising the FIA’s corporate crime department and expressing her gratitude to them for ensuring her husband was comfortable, she said her video was not about the case at all.

Instead, she spoke about a man who identified himself to her as “director of the FIA Karachi Zone” and said that he had attempted to extort Rs30 million from her.

She said that she initially believed the man was an actual FIA official, but soon realised that he was an imposter attempting to defraud her.

In her post, she included screenshots of the conversations and voice notes purportedly sent to her by that person.

She said he wanted Rs5m in cash within 15 minutes to be sent by her driver to him and then the rest of the amount the next day.

Ms Hussain said she had already reported the man to the FIA and will be talking to the National Database and Registration Authority officials to ask how her family members’ phone numbers “were so easily available” to anyone.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2025