The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday claimed to have arrested a suspect on charges of committing ‘online electronic currency fraud’ amounting to Rs3 billion from Karachi.
“The FIA arrested the suspect, Ghulam Sarwar, from Gulshan-i-Iqbal area,” said Additional Director Cybercrime Circle Mohammed Younis. The suspect was scheduled to board a flight to Saudi Arabia on Friday evening.
He was a primary suspect in the online fraud case which has affected more than 17,000 people in the country.
The suspect along with other accomplices used to operate a fake website called 'Channel Timez', with its address shown in Italy, which they used to receive between Rs30,000 and Rs5 million from each affectee on the pretext of providing lucrative returns on dollar investments.
Younis explained that Sarwar and his partners were involved in the illegal activity of running a Ponzi scheme, “MLM” (Multi Level Marketing), by using the website domain of chtimez.co for which they had opened several binary accounts for the collection of money from people, with a promise that the customers would be provided a handsome profit at the rate of 1.5 per cent in US dollars in electronic currency (e-currency) on a daily basis.
In this manner, the suspects cheated and collected a total of Rs3 billion from thousands of people fraudulently.
It transpired during the initial probe that the gang was also involved in the buying and selling of digital currencies including Perfect Money, One Life and One Coin, which have been prohibited by the State Bank of Pakistan.
The dollars collected from the affectees were also in the shape of e-currency.
The FIA have registered a case against the suspect under the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act-2016 and Sections 420, 109 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
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fraud