Women at work

MULTAN: Police officials arrested a gang of female swindlers and recovered stolen goods from their possession.

The New Multan police arrested Shazia and Shabana from a general bus stand and recovered a large quantity of money from their posession.

The women confessed that they used to visit several homes in the district and enticed people about ‘prize schemes’. “It could be anything, sometimes we encouraged them to join raffles that we had started, other times it was prize schemes but they seldom asked about details,” Shazia said, adding that most people they targeted were so excited about the potential prizes that they were willing to contribute.

During interrogation the arrested women said that their ring leader was a man named Shakeel, who was a resident of Junejo Town in Karachi.

“We don’t know how big the gang is and whether it operates in other districts, Shakeel used to send us stickers and tickets to distribute and we went from door-to-door,” Shabana said, adding that the schemes they promoted were usually thought up by the gang leader in Karachi and they all received a small cut from the final amount they collected.

Other women members of their gang are active in Multan as well.

Police registered a case against Shazia and Shabana and raids are being conducted to arrest other members of the gang.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2010.