RAWALPINDI: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Cybercrime Wing Deputy Director Syed Shahid Hassan on Tuesday said that the prime suspect involved in running a child pornography racket had been arrested from Gujar Khan.
Addressing a news conference here, Hassan remarked that the suspect was part of a four-member gang involved in luring children and then shooting their objectionable videos. Later, they would extort money from the children’s parents after threatening to release the videos on social media.
“Interpol had contacted Pakistan regarding the group,” he said, adding that the group had sexually assaulted at least 18 children.
The FIA official also shared that one member of the gang was in Hong Kong, another in Dubai, while the third gang member’s location remained untraceable.
Hassan assured that the absconding suspects would be arrested soon.
Separately, FIA busted a gang involved in swindling millions of rupees by impersonating military officials or by luring people with hefty lotteries over phone calls in Punjab.
The gang was capable of even creating fake thumbprints by stealing the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) database, a private media outlet reported.
According to the FIA investigation, the gang used to devise a detailed strategy before executing their plans.
“They [fraudsters] have invented a technology that is capable of manipulating the biometric system, NADRA system and other sensitive operations of the country, including issuance of cellphone SIMs and changing the modules of SIMs,” Shahid Hassan, the deputy director of FIA’s Cybercrime Circle, told media representatives.
The gang used thumbprints from NADARA’s database and converted them on silicon sheets for making the encrypted SIMs usable, he explained.
According to Hassan, the suspects ran their operations through an office in a village on the outskirts of Sargodha.
