KARACHI: The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) on Sunday claimed to have arrested eight suspects in a raid on what it described as an illegal call centre in Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

According to an NCCIA spokesperson, the call centre was allegedly used in a scam against foreign nationals.

During the raid, two partners of the call centre — Mohammed Laiq and Mohammed Fazil — were arrested, the spokesperson said and identified other held suspects as Ahsan Raza, Saif Aijaz, Fredric John, Cristopher Kaiser, Mohammed Danish and Mohammed Shahzeb.

The NCCIA stated that its officials examined digital devices at the call centre and found suspicious material, including spoofing calling diallers and spoofing software as well as data relating to financial institutions and confidential personal banking information of foreign nationals.

“During the initial technical analysis of the seized devices, it was established that the suspects were involved in making fraudulent calls through spoofing diallers, impersonating themselves as representatives of various US banks and debt resolution / settlement agencies, in order to carry out unauthorised and illegal transfers of funds, as well as to extract personal and sensitive information for wrongful gain by manipulating foreign nationals through carefully devised scripts and rebuttals,” the agency said.

It added: “The agents obtained Social Security Numbers, mobile phone numbers, dates of birth and bank and credit card credentials by falsely representing themselves as authorised representatives of regulated financial institutions of the United States of America. These details were then transmitted to the owners of the call centre, who further shared the same with merchants for the purpose of effecting unauthorised charges.”

A case was registered against the suspects under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) as well as the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2026