Court issues warrants for Waqar Zaka in cryptocurrency scam case

A local court issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for television broadcaster and social media activist Waqar Zaka in a case involving dubious Rs173 million cryptocurrency-related transactions.

The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) cybercrime detained Zaka in January of this year for allegedly running two accounts for the trading of cryptocurrency and virtual assets.

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Judicial Magistrate (East) Mukesh Kumar filed the lawsuit on Thursday against Zaka, who is leading the charge for virtual currencies to be recognized as legal cash in Pakistan.

The magistrate postponed the hearing to January 5, 2023, and instructed the FIA prosecutor to submit a report regarding the execution of the warrant on the following date.

FIA cyber crime Assistant Director Shehryar Ahmed Khan, who made the complaint on behalf of the government, claimed that Zaka was the subject of an investigation after the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) provided a source report in August 2020, when the case was brought.

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According to the information the FIA obtained from the relevant institutions, over the last three years, transactions totalling more than Rs173 million were seen in his bank accounts, including an overall credit of Rs86.1 million and a debt of Rs87.1 million.

As per the accounts’ statement, money was transferred internationally (through interbank fund transfers) and cleared checks were used to credit these accounts, and then money was transferred internally to debit the accounts of his family members.

The FIA maintained that after the investigation was launched and the accused was called in, he spread false information about state institutions and was discovered engaging in illegal activities on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter by posting offensive content about the institutions, posing as threats to government officials, and inciting the public against the state.