By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s cybercrime agency has arrested 114 foreign nationals in Islamabad, accusing them of running an online sextortion and romance-fraud network out of a company registered as a legitimate IT business.
The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) said 111 of those detained were Chinese nationals, with the remaining three from Vietnam. Investigators allege the group used a registered firm in the Pakistani capital as cover for an operation that lured victims in multiple countries into sexually explicit online exchanges, before using the material to blackmail and defraud them.
According to details released by the agency’s media wing, suspects allegedly built relationships with targets abroad through electronic communications and online platforms, drawing them into video chats and explicit video calls. Investigators say recordings and images from those exchanges were then used against victims for criminal and financial gain, in a pattern consistent with what is widely known as sextortion.
The case was heard on Wednesday, when the accused appeared before an Islamabad court by video link from Sparco Plaza, a facility in the capital’s Gulberg Greens area that the local administration has designated a sub-jail. Judicial Magistrate Muhammad Naseer Uddin remanded all 114 into judicial custody for a fortnight, until 26 August, following what proceedings described as a fraught hearing between defence counsel Sher Afzal Marwat and NCCIA officials.
The agency’s acting assistant director for legal affairs, Asim Shahjahan, told the court that investigators had originally been examining suspicious financial activity linked to the firm before uncovering what they allege was the production of explicit material on the premises during a raid. He said seized material and further digital evidence were still being processed, and that this would be presented to the court in due course. Marwat rejected the allegations on his clients’ behalf and pressed the agency to produce supporting evidence, including footage from the raid; Shahjahan maintained that the evidence remained in the agency’s possession.
The NCCIA has registered the case under Sections 14 and 21 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, alongside Sections 419, 420, 34 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, laying out an unusually broad set of charges that spans cyber fraud, sexual exploitation, impersonation and financial deception.
Section 14 of the Peca covers electronic fraud, criminalising the use of any information system, device or data to deceive someone for wrongful gain — a provision that captures phishing, online scams and fraudulent digital operations. It carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison, a fine of up to 10 million rupees, or both.
Section 21, which deals with offences against a person’s modesty, is the more serious charge here. It covers sexual blackmail, revenge pornography, deepfakes and inducing someone into sexually explicit acts online for the purposes of harm, blackmail or extortion, and allows the NCCIA to order the immediate removal or blocking of such content once a complaint is made. Convictions carry up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to five million rupees, rising further where the victim is a minor.
The Penal Code charges add further weight. Section 419 addresses cheating by impersonation, including the use of fake profiles and false identities on social media, and carries a maximum sentence of seven years. Section 420 applies where a victim is deceived into handing over money or property — the charge most directly tied to the financial exploitation associated with romance scams — and is likewise punishable by up to seven years in prison alongside a fine. Sections 34 and 109, covering common intention and abetment, have been applied to implicate the network as a whole, rather than only those directly involved in each exchange, extending potential liability to planners, facilitators and financiers.
The arrests come against the backdrop of a wider crackdown on the capital’s illegal call-centre and online-fraud sector, in which Chinese nationals have repeatedly featured. Days earlier, the NCCIA and Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) carried out a joint operation that saw at least 374 Chinese nationals detained across Islamabad — 258 by the FIA for immigration violations under the Foreigners Act, and a further 116 by the NCCIA in a separate action targeting illegal call centres, according to security sources. A separate FIA case involving 284 foreign nationals accused of breaching the terms of their visas at the same Gulberg Greens premises was also before the courts on Wednesday, though it was not immediately clear whether any of those detained featured in both proceedings.
The NCCIA said its investigation into the alleged sextortion network was continuing, with officers working to establish the full extent of each suspect’s role, identify further victims, and trace the financial and digital infrastructure that underpinned the operation. The agency has also published a list of those arrested, together with their passport numbers.
Pakistan has faced growing scrutiny over its record on online fraud enforcement, including questions over the conduct of its own cybercrime officials. A separate FIA inquiry disclosed last year alleged that a group of NCCIA officers had taken bribes worth tens of millions of rupees from operators of illegal call centres in Rawalpindi in exchange for protection, several of whom have since been arrested and charged. That case remains unrelated to the network dismantled this week, but it has added to pressure on the agency to demonstrate it can pursue cross-border cybercrime networks credibly and independently.
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