The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has initiated yet another First Information Report (FIR) against members of the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) for reportedly enabling and extorting illegal call centres operated by Chinese nationals in Bahria Town.
As per the FIR filed by the Anti-Corruption Circle (ACC) Islamabad, an internal investigation (No. 326/2025) revealed a network of corruption and extortion within NCCIA Rawalpindi.
The investigation found that numerous senior officials and private individuals were participating in offering protection to Chinese-operated call centres engaged in online fraudulent activities.
At least 15 such centres, including MAKJ International Pvt. Ltd. and C Dragon Casino, were allegedly functioning under the protection of NCCIA officers. These centres, managed by Chinese individuals, recruited Pakistani employees with high salaries and supposedly targeted the public through online scams.
The investigation identified Additional Director Shahzad Haider, Deputy Director Haider Abbas, and Sub-Inspector Muhammad Bilal as principal figures in the network. A private individual named Hassan Ameer was implicated as their intermediary.
The group purportedly gathered approximately Rs. 120 million in extortion payments between September 2024 and April 2025. Each call centre reportedly paid Rs. 1 million monthly as a “protection fee.”
The FIR described the distribution of the collected funds as: Rs. 550,000 per call centre for Additional Director Shahzad Haider, Rs. 200,000 for Deputy Director Haider Abbas, Rs. 200,000 for Sub-Inspector Muhammad Bilal, and Rs. 50,000 for the intermediary, Hassan Ameer.
Sub-Inspector Bilal was further accused of requesting an extra Rs. 800,000 as a “cooperation fee” from every newly set-up call centre.
The report additionally mentioned that Bilal, along with another officer, Sub-Inspector Mian Irfan from NCCIA Islamabad, allegedly extorted Rs. 40 million from a Chinese individual, named Leo, during a raid conducted in Islamabad’s Sector F-11.
On 14 July 2025, the NCCIA conducted another raid at an illegal call centre in Islamabad’s G-10 Markaz, according to a first information report lodged by complainant Aamir Azeem Abbasi. The operation followed a tip-off about a “task-based scam” in which the accused impersonated representatives of a fake online earning company to defraud people.
Earlier, on 9 July 2025, the NCCIA arrested 149 people during a raid on a scam call centre in Faisalabad. The agency said the network was involved in Ponzi schemes and defrauded individuals through fake investment tasks shared on WhatsApp and Telegram.
Among those arrested were 78 Pakistanis, 48 Chinese nationals, eight Nigerians, four Filipinos, two Sri Lankans, six Bangladeshis, two Myanmar nationals, and one Zimbabwean.