LAHORE. The Cyber Crime Circle of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has claimed to have arrested more than a dozen people accused of various crimes including child pornography and financial frauds.

“Thirteen people have been arrested in four different raids,” said FIA Cyber Crime Circle Faisalabad Deputy Director Rizwan Arshad on Friday while talking to Bol News.

“Four accused – Asad Ali, Tanveer Khan, Umair Raza and Usman Ghani – allegedly shared and transmitted child pornographic material through WhatsApp; indulged in live gay sex chatting and made video calls through Blued application,” he added

The official said the FIA arrested the accused after a probe and registered cases against them for further investigations. He said all the four accused of child pornography belong to Faisalabad.

The FIA also arrested nine other people for allegedly committing financial frauds.

The accused were identified as Silsal Kazmi, Yashow Majeed, Chigozie Amoka, Muhammad Munir, Muhammad Sajid, Muhammad Hanif, Muhammad Aslam, Sufyan and Muhammad Ismail.

Sharing their modus operandi, the Rizwan told Bol News that four of the accused were impersonating a Syrian Army nurse.

He said the FIA had received a complaint from one Ali Hassan of Faisalabad that he was contacted on Facebook by a Kelly Watson who told him that she was working in the Syrian Army as a nurse and wanted to invest in Pakistan with his help.

This Kelly Watson won the complainant’s trust and promised to send him a diplomatic parcel full of US dollars and expensive gifts. Subsequently, the victim was contacted via WhatsApp and was told to receive the parcel after paying Rs 825,000 to her as government taxes.

The FIA official said the victim sent the amount through various JazzCash and bank accounts but he never received any parcel.

According to Deputy Director Rizwan, it was found during the investigation that those accounts belonged to three men namely Rashid Minhas, Yasir Allaudin, Patras Masih.

Six of the accused – Muhammad Hanif, Muhammad Aslam, Sufyan, Muhammad Ismail, Muhammad Munir and Muhammad Sajid – were arrested for allegedly committing financial frauds by impersonating bank officials.

“The accused fraudulently and deceitfully got secret one-time passwords (OTP), debit and credit card information and account numbers from the victims and deprived them of Rs 800,000. Further investigations are underway,” he added.