Gang busted: Two held for illegal online forex trading

People had invested millions in hope of hefty returns

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has busted a gang involved in extortion of millions of rupees from citizens on the pretext of online forex trading.

A citizen, Mohsin Raza, the director at Seagull Pak Logistics, lodged a complaint with the FIA stating that Shahzad Ali, a resident of Lahore, and country head of Matt Capital, had extorted Rs0.9 million from him in the name of forex trading and was neither returning the amount nor paying the promised profits.

The Cyber Crime Circle of the agency raided an office in Sector I-9 and arrested Ali and seized two laptops used by him for illegal forex trading business, several visiting cards and a vehicle.

The forensic analysis of data recovered from the laptops confirmed that the accused was running an illegal forex trading business using dummy software of Matt Capital with website www.mattcapital.com, (http://www.mattcapital.com,) without permission from any government department or affiliation with any authority concerned.

Ali confessed that dozens of citizens had invested millions of rupees with him in the hope of doubling, tripling or even quadrupling their investment. He said Tayyab Tariq Akram, also a resident of Lahore, was the gang leader who would sit in the Lahore office and oversee the operational affairs of the company.

The FIA has registered a case against Ali and Akram under sections 36, 37 of the Electronic Transactions Ordinance 2002 and sections 406, 420, 468, 471 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code. Their offices in Islamabad and Lahore have also been sealed.

The bail application of Ali was rejected by the civil court first and then by the sessions court in Islamabad and he is in the lockup on judicial remand. Akram is absconding after cancellation of his pre-arrest bail by the sessions court and the FIA is conducting raids to arrest him.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2015.