The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) has claimed to have arrested more than 70 people in raids on two call centres in Karachi’s PECHS area, alleging that the operations were used to defraud American citizens through fake offers for new credit cards and low-interest financial services.

According to an NCCIA spokesperson, the raids were carried out on Sunday, and the two premises were being run by a single organisation. The agency has registered two cases and nominated 79 individuals in total, 48 in the first case and 31 in the second, for offences under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) and the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The spokesperson said the call centres were operating out of residential properties, which made it difficult to identify that any commercial activity was taking place inside. Running such operations from ordinary homes has become a familiar pattern in cases of this kind, since it lets organisers avoid the visibility of a conventional office and blend into the surrounding neighbourhood.

A key development in the operation was the seizure of what the NCCIA described as a live, operational and specially designed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. According to the agency, the CRM was actively used to maintain, manage and record detailed information on the US-based customers allegedly targeted. Legitimate businesses use CRM software to track client interactions, and investigators say this one was repurposed to organise the scheme itself, holding victim data and coordinating who called whom. The agency said the system and the surrounding digital infrastructure are expected to provide important evidence about the network, its customer database, its operational hierarchy and its alleged modus operandi.

All seized computers, the CRM, data and other digital material have been secured and sent for forensic examination. The NCCIA said this analysis should help investigators identify the wider network behind the operation, including how targets were selected, how money moved through financial channels, and who else may be connected to the alleged cyber-enabled fraud. That suggests further arrests could follow if the digital evidence points to additional players beyond those already nominated.

The FIRs lay out the mechanics. According to the case documents, interrogation of the suspects revealed that call agents obtained Social Security Numbers, mobile phone numbers, dates of birth, and bank and credit card credentials by falsely presenting themselves as authorised representatives of regulated financial institutions in the United States. That information was then passed to the call centre owners through the local server-based CRM, who in turn allegedly shared it with merchants managed by their partners so that unauthorised charges could be made against victims’ accounts.

In other words, the alleged fraud did not end with the phone call. The agents’ role was to collect sensitive personal and financial details, while the owners and their partners allegedly turned that data into money by pushing unauthorised transactions through merchant accounts. That structure, if proven, would indicate a layered operation rather than a group of individual scammers working independently.

The suspects have been booked under Sections 3 (unauthorised access to information system or data), 4 (unauthorised copying or transmission of data), 6 (unauthorised access to critical infrastructure information system or data), 13 (electronic forgery), 14 (electronic fraud), 16 (unauthorised use of identity information) and 26 (spoofing) of Peca. They also face Sections 109 (abetment) and 34 (common intention) of the PPC, which cover those who assisted the offences and those acting together toward a shared purpose. The cases were registered at the Cyber Crime Reporting Centre police station on the complaint of NCCIA Inspector Muhammad Ali.

The inclusion of the common intention and abetment provisions matters because it allows investigators to pursue not only the agents who made the calls but also the owners and others who allegedly organised, funded or benefited from the operation.

The raids come amid a run of similar actions by the agency in recent weeks. Recent Dawn reporting has covered NCCIA operations that led to the arrest of 212 individuals over alleged involvement in international fraud schemes, the busting of another scam call centre with 27 suspects arrested, and a separate case in which 11 people were held for online fraud and running illegal call centres. Taken together, they point to a sustained effort to shut down call centre scams operating out of Pakistani cities and targeting victims overseas.

For Pakistan, the stakes extend beyond the individual cases. Fraud operations of this kind that target foreign citizens damage the reputation of the country’s legitimate IT and call centre sector, which employs a large number of people and earns foreign exchange through lawful outsourcing work. Each publicised bust also feeds into how international partners and regulators view Pakistan’s ability to police cybercrime originating from its territory.

All those named remain suspects at this stage, and the allegations are yet to be tested in court.

Compiled by the Weekly PK Crime Desk.