Spoofing bust opens can of worms

Suspects would extort money from wealthy individuals in Pakistan, abroad

KARACHI:

Special Investigation Unit (SIU) police raided a call centre in Block 14, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, recovering 12 laptops reportedly used for spoofing calls to wealthy individuals in Pakistan and abroad. The callers would threaten, intimidate, and blackmail the victims to extract extortion money.

SIU police stated that on August 8, 2025, a businessman was allegedly kidnapped within the limits of Tipu Sultan police station and held in illegal confinement. He was later released after promising to pay Rs50 million. Later, the suspects collected a total of Rs8 million from the victim in extortion. The case was registered on August 13, and the investigation was subsequently transferred to the SIU.

Further, on October 20, 2025, Boat Basin police arrested two suspects - Talal Afser alias Major Zafar and Mubashir Gul.

During interrogation, Afser revealed that he and his associates were involved in demanding extortion through spoofing software. He disclosed that their business of running fake call centres had not been doing well lately, so they adopted a new "field innovation" - using spoofing software to make calls directly from call centres.

The suspect explained that before making a call, they could insert any number, so when the call reached the recipient, the caller ID displayed the fake number.

He added that since the calls were made using the internet, no institution could trace them, according to their understanding.

Based on the suspect's information, SIU police raided the Gulistan-e-Jauhar call centre, where the owner, Talha, along with suspects Hafeez and Moazzam fled upon seeing police.

Raids are being carried out to arrest the absconding suspects, including other reported accomplices, Shahmeer, Rehman Bajwa, Hani Bhai, Magsi, Dhakkan, Zubair, Asad, Saud, and Faraz.