Islamabad call centre used AI images to pressure borrowers, says NCCIA Additional Director Shoaib Khan
At a media briefing, Khan said 143 people were arrested in the Islamabad raid and alleged that staff used loan apps to access borrowers’ private photos and demand payments.
ISLAMABAD: The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) says it arrested 143 people at an Islamabad call centre suspected of using digital loan offers to obtain borrowers’ private phone data and pressure them for payments. Additional Director Muhammad Shoaib Khan said at a press briefing that the operation targeted people in South Asian countries and had been running for about six weeks.
Khan said the agency raided two call centres over three days, arresting another 11 people at a premises in Rawalpindi. In separate coverage on November 14, 24NewsHD reported more than 150 arrests in a call centre raid in Islamabad’s Sector G-8/4. The available accounts do not establish whether that report refers to the same premises or explains the difference in the figures. The Islamabad and Rawalpindi totals in this report come from Khan’s briefing.
How the Alleged Scheme Worked
Khan described the Islamabad premises as a four-floor operation that divided its work into four stages. He outlined the first two. Staff allegedly persuaded prospective borrowers to install an app, obtained access to their phone galleries and issued small loans. Borrowers’ data was then allegedly passed to another team, which used AI to create fabricated intimate images or videos.
Khan said callers threatened to share that material unless borrowers paid. Some people paid because they feared the material would reach others, he added. The briefing did not identify the apps involved, the countries where individual borrowers were targeted or the amount investigators believe was collected.
In Rawalpindi, Khan said the suspected centre in Bahria Town had operated for about 15 to 20 days. He alleged that the premises included a setup designed to impersonate police in a country being targeted. A separate September case also involved alleged cross-border loan recovery. In that case, the NCCIA reported 61 arrests at a call centre in Satellite Town, where it said callers posed as recovery agents and threatened people abroad.
Student Recruitment and Scrutiny of the Raids
Khan said university students were among those taking call centre jobs and warned that attractive pay could draw applicants to employers whose work they had not checked. The briefing did not say how many of those arrested in the two raids were students or specify the alleged role of each person.
Khan also reported arrests in 37 online harassment cases and said the agency planned to intensify action against operators and users of online betting platforms. He gave no breakdown linking those cases to the two call centre raids.
The operations come amid scrutiny of the NCCIA’s wider crackdown. In October, Khan reported 671 arrests across 16 Islamabad call centre raids and said forensic examinations were underway. This week, the Pakistan Software Houses Association urged the agency to distinguish suspected scam operations from legitimate IT and outsourcing businesses. The association said member firms had complained about disruptions after investigators took devices into custody. Its remarks addressed the wider crackdown.
How to Check a Loan App or Report Threats
Borrowers can check the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s current whitelist for apps operated by licensed non-bank lenders. The SECP’s digital lending rules generally restrict lenders from accessing a borrower’s photo gallery or contacts, with a narrow exception for certain lenders outside nano-lending to obtain a document relevant to the loan.
