RAWALPINDI: The Fe­­deral Investigation Age­ncy on Friday claimed to have arrested a key suspect allegedly involved in stealing money from bank customers through bogus ATM, credit and debit cards.

FIA Director Shakeel Durrani told a press conference that suspect Saqibullah Khan was arrested in Dhoke Nosa, KRL Road, and he had links with hackers in other countries.

He said 20 blank PVC cards, a magnetic strip reader, a skimming device, a laptop, credit cards and a mobile phone set was recovered from him.

He said the suspect was in touch with an Indian hacker, Sorev, though his social media account.

The Indian hacker directed him to take pictures of ATM (automated teller machine) terminals and send these to him so that he could prepare a skimming device (data reading machine) to steal money.

The FIA official said that the suspect was also connected to Canadian, Nigerian, American and Italian cyber criminal/hackers from whom he purchased illegally accessed/ stolen hacked data of international credit cards.

He said the accused also sold the credit card data and information to international hackers and got money from them through a known online funds transfer firm on bogus and tampered with computerised national identity cards of his family members and relatives.

The suspect, he said, also forged international credit cards in his parents’ name and purchased some banned devices from China in the name of his girlfriend who lived in Italy.

He said the suspect was also operating an international credit account in the name of his cousin.

Mr Durrani said that a case was registered against the suspect and a court had remanded him in judicial custody for 11 days.

He said the agency was investigating whether the suspect’s parents had a role in his crime.

The FIA official said that the suspect was also involved in blackmailing some women.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2017