KARACHI: An investigation officer (IO) informed the Judicial Magistrate (East) on Thursday that the suspects picked up from a DHA call centre in a financial fraud case were also involved in illegally booking international travel tickets and hotels using compromised credit and debit cards.

Ameer Ali Khoso, the IO of the case, brought the four suspects — Mohammed Shah Bukhari, Uzair Shehzad, Rohit Kumar and Yougesh Rajesh — before Judicial Magistrate (East) Gulraiz Memon, after expiry of their initial one-day physical custody.

IO Khoso informed the court that during the initial interrogation, the suspects allegedly disclosed that they were also involved in illegally booking international travel tickets and hotel reservations through carding activities, whereby stolen or compromised credit or debit card information was used for fraudulent transactions.

“The proceeds of these illegal activities were reportedly routed through cryptocurrency transactions, particularly USDT, as well as through hawala/hundi channels in order to conceal the origin and movement of illicit funds,” the IO added.

Held men also involved in ‘illegally’ booking international travel tickets, hotels, IO tells court

IO Khoso also stated that it has been revealed that the suspects were actively making fraudulent international calls through spoofing dialers while impersonating themselves as representatives of foreign banks and financial institutions.

“Through such deceptive means, they induced victims to disclose personal and sensitive financial information and carried out unauthorised and illegal transfers of funds from the victims’ accounts,” he added.

He sought further custody of the suspects, stating that he needed to trace the financial trail of the fraudulently obtained funds and obtain information regarding cryptocurrency wallets, hawala and hundi operators, and other financial channels allegedly used for laundering the money and to apprehend remaining suspects.

After hearing the IO and examining the remand papers, the court extended the physical custody of the suspects for one more day and directed the IO to produce them on Friday (today) along with a progress report.

According to the FIR, on March 10, the NCCIA had conducted a raid in a call centre in DHA and during its inspection, the team found digital devices and after their analysis, it was revealed that the suspects’ were involved in illegal financial fraud activities.

“Spoofing software used in the commission of such crimes was also found along with data pertaining to financial institutions and banking information of foreign nationals.”

The FIR stated that initial grilling of the held suspects revealed that all data related to the foreign nationals’ bank accounts had been provided by the owner of the call centre, Syed Abu Bakar, and his partner.

The FIR added: “the agents obtained social security numbers, cell phone numbers, dates of birth and mothers’ maiden names by posing as bank representatives after securing confidential details pertaining to bank accounts and credit cards. Furthermore, these details were then sent to the merchants for unauthorised financial transactions.”

A case was registered by the Cyber Crime Cell for offences under Sections 3 (unauthorised access to information system or data), 4 (unauthorised copying or transmission of data), 13 (electronic forgery), 14 (electronic fraud), 16 (unauthorised use of identity information) and 26 (spoofing) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Peca) Act, read with Section 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2026