NCCIA Karachi Call Centre Raid: 273 Arrested in One of Pakistan’s Biggest Cybercrime Swoops
Pakistan’s cybercrime agency has arrested 273 people, including more than 100 women and 42 children under the age of 18, in a raid on a Karachi call centre accused of defrauding people abroad. The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) raided the centre in PECHS, off Shahrah-e-Faisal, on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, and the scale of the operation — hundreds of workers in a single office, dozens of them minors — has put the spotlight back on an industry that investigators say is far bigger than one building.
Additional Director Shahzad Akbar gave the details at a press conference on Thursday, 5 November. He said the centre, identified by eyewitnesses as the Voxtron call centre, was among the top three scam call centres in Karachi, and that officers seized 339 laptops, 152 mobile phones and four computer units. One report put the laptop figure far higher, at 3,390 — the exact number differs between reports, and the agency has not publicly reconciled the two figures.
The arrests were produced before a court by video link on Thursday. Judicial Magistrate (East) Gulraiz Memon granted the NCCIA two days of physical remand for nine key suspects, ordered women and under-18s released on bail against surety bonds of Rs5,000 each, and sent the remaining suspects to jail on judicial remand. The charges are allegations at this stage, and the investigation is continuing.
What the NCCIA Says the Centre Was Doing
According to the agency, workers at the centre used fake names and fake online IDs to call people abroad, posing as bank and customer-service staff. Several different IDs were found logged into single laptops. Investigators say the centre obtained people’s personal details and credit card numbers, then withdrew money from their accounts — and that retired people were among the victims.
Akbar said forensic examination found evidence of money laundering and hawala transfers, including through JazzCash, and that people based abroad and some merchants were part of the network. The agency says the call centres obtained citizens’ personal data and used it in fraud schemes, and that the laptops held fake online IDs and the financial details of credit card holders.
The most striking claim from the press conference was about the size of the problem. Akbar said about 350 call centres in Karachi are currently involved in scamming. The targeted company was among the top three, he said, and it had been raided before — but had started the same work again. This time, he said, was the first time employees were nominated in a case along with the owner. Earlier, cases were registered only against owners, whose relatives then registered new companies with the same staff.
The Court Hearing and the Families Waiting Outside
The 273 detainees were kept at the call centre itself, which the Sindh Home Department declared a sub-jail, and were produced by video link before the magistrate. The investigating officer told the court they were allegedly involved in defrauding foreign nationals.
The defence raised the ages of the detainees. A lawyer told the court that more than 70 of those arrested were under 18 — higher than the agency’s own count of 42 — and argued the offences were bailable. The court ordered female suspects and those under 18 released on bail, and sent the rest to jail on judicial remand.
Outside, families of the detained workers protested after the raid, and traffic on Shahrah-e-Faisal was disrupted. Relatives told reporters that families were refused copies of the FIR. One relative said the company had been raided twice before without legal action against the owner, and another alleged authorities knew children as young as 12 worked there. A mother said she had had no contact with her daughter since 3 November.
Akbar also had a warning for parents. He said they could face action under Section 109 if they did not stop their children from illegal activities — a message aimed at the families of the many teenagers found working at the centre.
A Network, Not a One-Off Raid
This is not the first NCCIA raid on a Karachi call centre, and the pattern in recent weeks suggests a sustained crackdown rather than a single operation. On 18 October, the agency arrested 11 suspects, including alleged call centre owner Yasir Gilgiti, during a raid on a suspected international financial fraud operation at Zafar Centre on Shahrah-e-Faisal, where investigators alleged employees impersonated American banks to obtain banking information from US citizens. Days earlier, 47 suspects were arrested at Technology Park on the same road, with 50 laptops and 26 mobile phones recovered.
The crackdown reaches beyond Karachi. The Federal Investigation Agency and the NCCIA arrested 275 foreign nationals during a joint raid in Islamabad’s I-10 sector for allegedly running an illegal call centre, and in Rawalpindi the agency detained 130 Malaysians in a raid on a call centre accused of running a cybercrime syndicate targeting victims in Malaysia.
Together, the raids sketch an industry that investigators say is organised, cross-border and hard to shut down — companies re-register under new names, staff move to the next office, and the calls keep going out to victims overseas.
Why This Raid Matters
Scam call centres that target foreigners damage Pakistan’s reputation and its growing IT exports, and they put thousands of young workers — many of them teenagers looking for a first job — at risk of arrest and criminal records. The presence of dozens of minors in a single raided office, and the allegation that children as young as 12 were working there, raises questions that go beyond cybercrime: about who recruits these workers, what parents know, and how such large operations run openly in busy commercial districts.
For now, the case is at its earliest stage. Nine suspects are in NCCIA custody on remand, the rest are on bail or judicial remand, and the agency says its investigation is continuing. What happens next — whether the case reaches trial, whether the network behind the centre is exposed, and whether the promised action against other centres follows — will show whether this raid was a turning point or another entry in a long list of raids that changed little.
Sources: khabr.pk; Zark News (both reporting the NCCIA press conference of 5 November 2026 and the court proceedings; laptop seizure figure differs between reports — 339 per Express News, 3,390 per Express Tribune — and is noted as such above).
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