Punjab Safe Cities Authority seeks cybercrime help after attempts to defraud citizens with fake traffic fines

LAHORE: The Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) has lodged a complaint with the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) to track down and take legal action against unknown suspects who cloned the authority’s official website and sent fraudulent alerts to citizens, urging them to pay fines for pending e-challans.

Separately, it wrote to the Punjab Police to trace the mobile phone numbers of the suspects, who had created the fake website and disseminated the fraudulent link.

The PSCA took action when the link, containing fraudulent pending e-challans, was sent to citizens. The link urged recipients to visit the fake website and follow the steps to pay fines.

The authority said that the website and link were not legitimate and confirmed that it was a phishing scheme.

PSCA Managing Director Ahsan Younas told media that scammers use the internet for online fraud and apply various tactics to deceive citizens for financial gain.

A team of experts conducted the inquiry and found that a man in Karachi had generated “the alert message with a voice note,” Younas said.

The PSCA then launched an “awareness campaign on a large scale” on social media and alerted citizens that the authority “sends e-challan alerts from the official number 8070” only, Younas added.

It also asked citizens to be careful and verify links via the official authority’s number to avoid online fraud.

A closer look at the contents of the messages revealed the use of the word “urgent,” which the official PSCA website or messages did not use, he said, adding that the domain name of the fake website was different from the original, gop.pk.

PSCA Chief Operating Officer Mustansar Feroz said an investigation found that the mobile number used by the scammer was registered in the name of a woman with no involvement in the fraud.

He added that the suspects acquired mobile phone numbers, SIMs and CNICs of citizens from vendors, saying that this was an alarming situation.

The request submitted to the NCCIA to launch the probe also included action against the scammers for damaging the reputation of the authority, Feroz said.