FIA raids Axact offices: take records, employees and computers into custody

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PakistanToday
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5
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ISLAMABAD:

The Federal Investigation Agency’s cyber crime unit entered AXACT offices in Karachi and Islamabad on Tuesday (today), collecting manuals, records, computers and taking into custody the employees as evidence in the ongoing investigation of ‘fake degrees scam’, according to local media sources.

TV reports quoted FIA Deputy Director Tahir Tanveer as saying that the Axact offices in twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi have been sealed and that around 22 employees of the IT company were taken into custody by the Islamabad investigating team, authorities claimed.

Earlier, action against Axact kicked off after Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ordered an inquiry into a story published by The New York Times that claimed the company was issuing fake degrees as part of a massive, global scam.

The minister in his directive also said that the FIA was to determine whether the contents of the NYT story were true and whether the company was involved in any illegal business which may bring a “bad name” to Pakistan, reportedly.

Seven Years in Prison:

An FIA official who did not wish to be named said that the allegations raised by the newspaper if proven true would be punishable by seven years in prison under Pakistan’s Electronic Transaction Ordinance.

Aitzaz added that this was a serious matter because a Pakistani company had allegedly been issuing fake degrees, according to newspaper reports.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. Again I shall return to the theme of law and order, but first begin by acknowledging that the security services have started doing a stellar job and there appears to be a clear focus and determination on being very tough on major criminals. Recently, there was the AXACT financial fraud (I shall operate on the working assumption that indeed such a fraud did occur on a large scale). Clearly then, this is also a major crime and the question becomes what to do with the perpetrators of this fraud. By now, no one would be surprised were I to suggest execution of the top 2 or 3 criminals associated to this crime. A high profile case like this is exactly the sort of major crime where unambiguous messages need to be sent by the state. Convicted major criminals should understand that capital punishment will no longer be a theoretical possibility but a practical inevitability.

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