Gang involved in digital blackmailing busted

MANSEHRA: The police claimed to have arrested a member of a gang that had established a digital platform in the name of a private television news channel to blackmail officials and businessmen in Hazara and other parts of the country.

“We acted upon a written complaint received from the correspondent of the News channel and arrested a fraudster who worked for the gang operating a digital platform from Saudi Arabia and parts of Punjab and Hazara division,” Shafeeullah Khan Gandapur, the district police officer (DPO), told reporters here on Thursday.

He said a local correspondent of that media outlet had moved an application against a digital platform being operated from Saudi Arabia and parts of Punjab and Hazara division and women were also part of it.

“We arrested Mohammad Tariq who presented this digital platform made in the name of that specific news channel and seized a fake logo and a mobile phone used for sharing news from his possession,” Gandapur said.

He said that the accused impersonated himself as a doctor to deceive people and we arrested him in a raid in the Oghi area of the district.“We have also initiated legal formalities to bring back to the country one of three main culprits, including Mohammad Afzal, Aurangzeb and a woman known as Shazadi, through Interpol,” the DPO said.

The arrested accused Mohammad Tariq who was produced before the media at the presser said he was trapped by the group that contacted him from Abbottabad and Saudi Arabia and a fake logo was dispatched to him at his residential address from Punjab.