ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: The main accused in the Rs4 billion cellular phone scratch card scam arrested on Monday, after remaining at large for two years, was produced before the court on Tuesday.
Sources said Usman Zafar, a former employee of the Warid Telecom, had fled to the United Kingdom in 2008, giving a slip to a raiding team of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
A tip-off to police about his presence in Pakistan led to his arrest on Monday. Now he is in the custody of FIA's Cyber Crime Wing.
Working on a senior position with the Warid Telecom, Zafar was responsible for forwarding requests from the market for generating numbers of scratch cards.
He would send duplicate requests to the concerned department to get data for double the amount of demand. He got fake cards printed from the market against the genuine data provided by the company and made arrangements for selling the same at a lesser price in collusion with a major franchise of the company.
Sources said cards valuing Rs13.4 million had been loaded by the time the scam was uncovered. The remaining cards were blocked.
The accused was produced before Kamran Basharat Mufti, senior civil judge and area magistrate Islamabad on Tuesday. Advocate Tariq Bilal, representing FIA, requested physical remand of Zafar, saying various articles were to be recovered from him for completing the probe.
Raja Inam Ameen Minhas, representing the accused, opposed the request for remand, saying the prosecution has no evidence to connect his client with the scam. The judge sent Zafar on a two-day physical remand.
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