The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday arrested a man on charges of committing online electronic currency fraud worth Rs3 billion in Karachi.
Prime suspect Ghulam Sarwar was arrested from Gulshan-e-Iqbal area, FIA Cybercrime Circle Additional Director Mohammed Younis said, and added that he was scheduled to board a flight to Saudi Arabia on Friday evening.
He was involved in an online fraud case which has affected more than 17,000 people in the country, according to the FIA.
The suspect and his 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.
The FIA official explained that Sarwar, along with his partners, ran a Ponzi scheme called “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% in US dollars in electronic currency (e-currency) on a daily basis.
The suspects allegedly cheated and collected a total of Rs3 billion from thousands of people fraudulently through this pattern.
It transpired during the initial probe that the gang was also allegedly involved in the buying and selling of digital currencies including Perfect Money and One Life and One Coin which were prohibited by the State Bank of Pakistan.
The money in dollars collected from the affectees was also in the shape of e-currency.
The agency registered a case against the prime suspect under the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act-2016 and Sections 420, 109 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
