LAHORE: Popular YouTuber,Saadur Rehman aka Ducky Bhai was arrested on Sunday at the Lahore airport after being booked by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) for allegedly promoting online gambling and betting applications.

He was presented before a judicial magistrate in the afternoon, who granted the NCCIA his two-day remand. The agency has been directed to present him before the court again on Tuesday, Aug 19, with an investigation report, says a Dawn.com report.

The case was registered by the NCCIA Lahore on August 17 around midnight under sections 13 (Electronic Forgery), 14 (Electronic Fraud), 25 (Spamming) and 26 (Spoofing) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 as well as sections 294 B (Offering prize in connection with trade) and 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducting delivery of property) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

As per official sources, the case is related to an inquiry dated June 13 and was registered on the “receipt of information from reliable source(s)” that some YouTubers and social media influencers were promoting gambling and betting applications via their accounts for their own monetary benefits.

The FIR claimed that people, inspired by these influencers, invested their hard-earned money in these applications, suffered financial losses.

It accused Rehman of promoting different gambling and betting applications, including Binomo, 1xBet, Bet 365, B9 Game etc through his YouTube channel.

A total of 27 video links from his social media account, that purportedly promoted these applications were included in the FIR, several of which are no longer available to the users.

Despite collecting millions of rupees, it said Binomo and other apps “committed fraud” and didn’t pay any profits against the investments, defrauding the public.

It also noted that the applications were not registered in Pakistan yet.

The FIR says Rehman has been summoned by the authorities but he “deliberately” avoided joining the inquiry proceedings. His name was also placed on the Provisional National Identification List.

On August 16, the agency received information from the Federal Investigation Agency’s Immigration wing at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore that the suspect had been detained upon marking out through the IBMS system, while trying to leave the country.

The officials say the YouTuber was arrested and his phone seized, while a preliminary investigation found evidence of chats with contacts related to Binomo promotions, as well as evidence of illegitimate payments from the app, besides “misleading videos”.

“It is also revealed that the suspect is also working as s country manager for the Binomo management without authorisation from any government institution, including the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) or State Bank of Pakistan,” a source says.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2025