FIA obtains journalist Farhan Mallick’s remand in fraud case

Journalist Farhan Mallick was remanded to the Federal Investigation Agency's (FIA) custody for five days in a fraud case after being presented before Judicial Magistrate Malir-I, a Geo News report said on Wednesday.

He had been arrested in a new case on Tuesday instead of being sent into judicial remand as per orders the court's orders in the first case registered against him last week.

Mallick — who worked for a private news channel as its director news and now owns a YouTube channel — was taken into custody on March 20 on charges of spreading anti-state content. He was due to be remanded to judicial custody after the completion of a 4-day physical remand in the first case on Tuesday.

As per the latest development, the FIA claimed to have raided a call centre a day earlier, alleging that its employees were involved in stealing data from foreigners and defrauding them. Two suspects were arrested, who reportedly told authorities that the call centre was being operated under Mallick’s orders.

The FIR stated that the suspects, namely Syed Muhammad Atir Hussain and Hasan Najeeb Alam, along with others were involved in defrauding several foreign nationals by stealing confidential financial data of their credit cards "through spoofed calls and impersonation", which is allegedly used for wrongful gains.

“During enquiry, a raid was conducted at the office of 'Sradtechies' located at Suite No 12 Gulshan view Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block-13C, Karachi, where the employees (agents) were found performing the illegal action of spoofed calls through 'Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)' software to different foreign nationals and obtaining their confidential credentials by alluring them that they are calling from security department of master and visa banking system and that they will lower the interest rates on taxes upon the loan obtained by them,” the FIR read.

It further stated that one of the arrested suspects revealed that Mallick was also involved in patronising the said activity. On Wednesday, FIA officials presented Mallick before the court for hearing on the new case and it subsequently granted them a five-day physical remand of the journalist.