KARACHI, Dec 2: The Commercial Banking Circle (CBC) of the provincial chapter of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday claimed to have busted a gang of fraudsters involved in plunder of the accounts of commercial banks' customers.

FIA additional director Khursheed Ahmed Khan Marwat, who handles the Karachi CBC affairs, told a press conference here on Friday that the fraudsters had already withdrawn billions of rupees on fake cheques and pay orders and were also involved in printing and using counterfeit notes.

He said that 12 suspects, including two employees of commercial banks, had been arrested.

The 'laboratory' where fake cheques, pay orders and currency notes were prepared was also seized, he added.

Mr Marwat said that after receiving credible information that an inter-provincial gang of fraudsters was discreetly operating in the city, the Karachi FIA caught Abid Hafeez, Muhammad Sadiq and Malik Sajid while they were trying to withdraw Rs520,000 using two fake cheques from HBL's Bahadurabad branch.

“During the interrogation, they revealed that they had links with some officials who used to provide them with information about the status of the accounts with a huge balance,” the FIA official said.

He said that the suspects told the interrogators that their gang consisted of 12 persons and that they had set up a 'modern computerised lab' to produce fake or tampered with original documents, cheques, etc.

On the lead provided by the suspects, a raid was carried out on a house in Azeem Goth, Block 4, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, and the lab along with equipment was seized, Mr Marwat said, adding that nine suspects including Muhammad Farhan, Masood Naeem Akhtar, Syed Kamal Haider Zaidi, Anjum Javed, Syed Adeel Ahmed and Muhammad Adeel were arrested while they were busy preparing fake documents.

The FIA official claimed that Muhammad Farhan was the mastermind of the gang while Anjum Javed and Syed Adeel Ahmed were employees of two banks (UBL and Bank Al-Falah).

Doctor killed during clinic robbery

A doctor was shot dead in his clinic by robbers in Model Colony on Friday, police said.

They said that two armed men broke into the clinic, set up within the doctor's house, and tried to rob the patients of their cash and valuables.

Dr Tariq, 50, son of Mohabbat Ali, intervened and resisted the robbery but the armed men opened fire and left the doctor seriously wounded, the police said, adding that the victim succumbed to his bullet wounds before he could be shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

DSP Imdad Solangi insisted that it was not an act of targeted killing.

The victim had no personal enmity with anyone, he said.

No FIR of the incident was registered at the Model Colony police station till late Friday.