26 suspects granted bail in credit card data theft case in Karachi

KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Thursday granted bail to 26 suspects in a case pertaining to credit card data theft.

National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) had booked. apprehended the 26 suspects for committing offences under Sections 3 (unauthorised access to information system or data), 4 (unauthorised copying or transmission of data), 13 (electronic forgery), 14 (electronic fraud), 16 (unauthorised use of identity information) and 26 (spoofing) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (Peca) read with Sections 109 (abetment) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the NCCIA, they had raided an office in Gulishan-i-Iqbal on May 8. found suspect Umer, alias Robin, and other suspects allegedly involved in the “suspicious/illegal activities of call centre”.

Later, they apprehended all the suspects. interrogated them, which revealed that they were “engaged in fraudulent activities by making spoofed calls through cloud-based dialer and CRM provided by “One-Ten-Communication owned by Mustaza Hussain alias Hani”.

It further claimed that the suspects impersonated themselves as representatives of various US-based banks. debt resolution or settlement agencies with the intent to carry out “fraudulent and illegal transfer of funds by obtaining personal and sensitive information for wrongful gain”.

The NCCIA claimed that the suspects manipulated foreign nationals through carefully prepared scripts. rebuttals designed to deceive them to gain their trust, adding that unauthorised confidential personal data belonging to foreign nationals was also recovered from the seized devices.

It added the suspects “obtain social security numbers, mobile phone numbers, dates of births. bank credit card credentials by falsely representing themselves as authorised representatives of regulated financial institutions of the United States of America. These details were then transmitted to the owner of the call centre through CRM portal. who further shared the same with merchants managed by One-Ten Communication owned by Murtaza Hussain alias Hani to actualise unauthorised charges/funds.”

At the last hearing. the court had sent 21 suspects to prison after their interrogation was completed, while the remaining five suspects, including the owner of the call centre, were handed over to the NCCIA for two days.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2026