Islamabad, Sep 27 (IANS) As many as 212 people, including Chinese nationals, were arrested by Pakistani authorities in raids carried out on three illegal call centres in Islamabad involved in an alleged international online fraud network, according to a media report.
Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) targeted call centres involved in international online fraud in raids conducted in Islamabad’s E-11 and G-10 sectors. Officials said the call centres used various schemes, including tasking fraud, romance or “love-dating”, and impersonating Google representatives to carry out scams, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Tasking fraud usually starts with fake online opportunities, where scammers offer money to victims for completing tasks like liking videos, rating products or promoting content. Initially, scammers may pay a small amount of money to victims before convincing them to deposit larger amounts to complete higher-value tasks or withdraw supposed earnings.
According to an NCCIA spokesperson, Pakistani authorities seized computers and other gadgets, including 383 computers and CPUs, 306 mobile phones and 299 monitors and laptops, The Jerusalem Post reported, citing the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
The arrested individuals include Pakistani and Chinese men and women, it said. However, the Pakistani authorities did not reveal the number of Chinese nationals that have been detained during the raids.
In July last year, the NCCIA claimed that it had arrested 149 people, including 48 Chinese nationals and people from some other countries, for their alleged involvement in an online fraud. As many as 149 people were arrested during a raid carried out on a factory in Faisalabad, Pakistani daily Dawn reported.
Sources revealed that the arrested individuals, including 48 Chinese citizens, were allegedly involved in hacking internet systems of banks and other cybercrimes and had been operating from the factory, Dawn reported. The authorities recovered a large number of laptops and gadgets from the factory.
–IANS
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