KARACHI: A judicial magistrate has sent 22 suspects, including eight foreign nationals, to prison on judicial remand in an online fraud case.

The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) had on Dec 18 arrested the suspects for their alleged involvement in running a fraudulent Ponzi scheme network in Defence Housing Authority (DHA).

The agency registered a case against the held suspects under various provisions of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) and the Pakistan Penal Code.

The investigating officer (IO) of the NCCIA claimed that they got a tip-off that some Chinese citizens and others were involved in an online fraud in the garb of running a call centre in DHA. A raid was carried out at the call centre and suspects were arrested after they failed to provide any legal document to justify their lawful authority to operate the call centre, it added.

The IO stated that the call centre employees lured ordinary citizens through social media advertisement to invest money, which they subsequently transferred into different bank accounts created to show fictitious investment growth and fabricated profits.

The IO produced the suspects before a judicial magistrate (East) and submitted that the investigation had not been completed and efforts were on to recover digital devices used in the commissioning of the alleged offences.

However, he asked the magistrate to send the suspects to prison due to security reasons.

The magistrate sent the suspects to jail on 14-day judicial remand and directed the IO to complete the investigation and file a report till Jan 2.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2025