GUJRANWALA: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday arrested three persons, including the owner of a mobile phone franchise, over allegedly stealing citizens’ data from the database of the National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) Gujranwala center.
The arrests were made during a raid carried out by an FIA team at a mobile phone franchise located in the Rahwali cantonment area of the city and three suspected persons were taken into custody.
An FIA official confirmed that the franchise owner is among the detainees. He revealed that the suspects had activated SIM cards by using the stolen data which they copied to silicon from the fingerprint software for the citizens.
The raiding team also recovered 10,000 SIM cards, eight bio-metric machines and 10 laptops from their possession, he said.
A case has been registered against the arrested persons over stealing and using confidential public data and its usage in illegal purposes.
In separate raids, the officials of FIA cybercrime cell seized 14 illegal gateway exchanges in Sargodha and Sillanwali besides arrested three suspects. The FIA personnel have also recovered three exchanges, 1,000 cellular sim cards and a laptop.
In Sillanwali, the raid was conducted in the Nishatabad area where 11 exchanges were recovered from two suspects. The officials said that the arrested persons are involved in giving loss to the national exchequer by making illegal phone calls.
Earlier in June last year, two former employees of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) had been identified and subsequently booked for stealing sensitive records.
The authority had nominated a former deputy chairman and a deputy director in the First Information Reports (FIRs). The complaint was lodged by Nadra HQ Chief of Staff, retired Col Tahir Maqsood Khan.
The former employees were booked after incidents of thefts from Nadra Headquarters were reported to the Secretariat police in Islamabad.
The FIR had stated that a former deputy chairman stole sensitive information, adding that he was dismissed from service a few months back.
He also carried along with some belongings of the authority, the complaint had said.
