A court in Islamabad on Thursday handed prison terms besides imposing fines on three persons, including a Chinese national, in a case of online fraud, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
Pronouncing the decision, Senior Civil Judge and Judicial Magistrate Malik Aman declared Shiauming, Noman Abid Malik and Husnain Mehmood guilty, and sentenced them to five-year imprisonment each besides imposing a fine of Rs50,000 on each of them.
They were handed additional two-year imprisonment term and were fined Rs200,000 each under section 14 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA, 2016).
However, the court acquitted Zoching Lyang, Shahzada Ayaz Latif and Hamza Shahnawaz by giving them benefit of the doubt.
The convicts had committed a fraud of over Rs19.3 million with a citizen named Haris Ahmad Sheikh, a resident of Islamabad, through a fake advertisement of Barcley Bank on Facebook.
They won the victim’s trust by promising him a profit of Rs900 on Rs12,000 investment.
An amount of over Rs2.5 million was transferred to the bank account of Husnain Mehmood, a convict, in just 14 days.
Convict Nauman Abid’s company ‘New Gates Technologies’ and Chinese citizen’s firm ‘BXM International’ were used in the fraud.
As many as nine persons, foreign as well as local, had been declared proclaimed offenders in the case.
Reporter: Hashir Warraich