NCCIA Arrests Two Over Illegal Call Centre in Lahore That Defrauded US Citizens

Lahore: An illegal call centre operating from inside Hafeez Centre on Main Boulevard, Gulberg, has been raided by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), which arrested its owner, Irshad Ahmed Butt, and an employee, Aurangzeb, on Friday. The agency says the centre’s business was not software or sales. It was other people’s bank cards.

How the pitch worked

According to Atif Ameer, additional director of the NCCIA’s Lahore Zone, the callers posed as representatives of insurance companies. Working an “insurance campaign” script, they persuaded US citizens to hand over their credit and debit card details — details that were then used for illegal financial transactions. The agency says it picked up the centre’s suspicious activity through open-source intelligence and obtained a search warrant from a court before moving in.

Laptops and phones are now with the forensic teams

A first look at the seized laptops and mobile phones turned up online calling software and data linked to financial fraud, officials said. The devices have been sent for forensic examination, which should show how many victims were called and where the money went.

The second such raid this month

Lahore has seen this pattern before — recently. Last week the same agency arrested 37 people at another illegal call centre in Johar Town, where staff allegedly ran a fake mobile phone sales scheme aimed at customers in the US and Canada and harvested their card details the same way; 80 devices were seized in that raid. Officials say the crackdown on such centres will continue. A case has been registered against the two men; the allegations have yet to be proven in court.