Cyber-fraud case Over to FIA
Source: timespk.com
Date: August 29, 2003
MULTAN: The first Cyber-fraud case worth US$ 30,000 reported from Multan is being sent to Cyber Crime Wing [CCW] FIA Islamabad for assistance in investigations due to absence of relevant expertise here, said deputy director FIA Crime Cell Multan Rana Irfan on Thursday.
The Special Judge Central Multan has allowed five-day physical remand of the four accused, including an alleged hacker, and permission to shift them to Islamabad.
Backdrop
"Two computers, one of them taken into possession last night, have been sealed as evidence and they along with the accused would leave for Islamabad today for investigations by Cyber Crime Wing", he said but added that the main investigation would still be done by investigating officer of FIA Multan and CCW would assist us.
They would be produced again before the concerned local court after expiry of five-day physical remand, he added.
This could be the second or third incident in Pakistan after one or two happened at Karachi or somewhere else in the country, he said adding: "We are also contacting concerned FIA officer at Karachi who had investigated such case(s)", said Irfan. In the absence of Cyber-Crimes related laws, case was registered under available relevant sections of PPC, another FIA officer said.
Statute
There is an urgent need to enact special statute to tackle the Cyber Crimes from investigations by relevant experts to prosecution and subsequent punishment to keep the overseas Pakistanis stick to the legal means of money transfer and not the 'Hundi system', said noted lawyer and former vice chairman Pakistan Bar Council Mian Abbas Ahmad.
An amendment was made in the law of evidence to make room for production of evidences involving modern technology but it is not sufficient to tackle Cyber Crimes, Mian Abbas said. Deputy Director FIA Multan Rana Irfan said, efforts are on by the federal government to draft law to tackle this new trend of sophisticated crime involving modern technology.
Yusaf Alvi, the Deputy Post Master General Multan Region said, US$ 4 billion remittances were recorded till June 30, 2003, with major share of it received through postal department's service. "We have adopted effective measures from changing password for access to the system to introducing strict checks to ascertain the identity of those who come to receive money sent from abroad", he added.
Hackers
Four accused including an alleged hacker Iftikhar Ahmed Khan, a Postal Clerk Muhammad Tahir, and two Internet Club owners including Zafar and Raza Hussain Naqvi, were arrested on Wednesday on charge of fraudulently receiving US$ 30,000 from different outlets in Pakistan including Express Post Service of Postal department, and banks which were sent by overseas Pakistanis through Western Union, a world wide money transfer service.
They did it with the help of alleged hacker, who managed to copy the software of the company to his own CPU in collusion with the postal department clerk on April 23 in the name of removing some virus from the system that enabled him to have access to the password of the system and the Money Transfer Code Number [MTCN], a number which is only known to the sender and the genuine receiver in Pakistan.
Yusaf Alvi said, the alleged hacker Iftikhar is not a qualified computer expert, having no degree like BCS or B.Sc in Computer Science but still he was adept in handling computers and troubleshooting.
Detection
The matter came to light after a person Nazir Ahmad complained that when he went to an Express Post outlet at Peshawar to collect Rs 500,000, he was informed that the same has already been given to some person and later, it was detected that the password or Money Transfer Code Number for this was entered from Multan
Original article at: http://www.timespk.com
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