In one of the biggest online fraud cases of recent times, an online investment company named as "Pslash" has frauded more than 100,000 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa residents of Rs. 5.6 billion.
According to a report by international media reports, PSlash (the fraudulent company in question) opened an office in the Deans Trade Center in Peshawar in January this year. The company raised significant sums of money defrauding unsuspecting properties and investors in digital and foreign currencies under the pretense of earning dividends of up to 13% annually returns.
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But on November 20, the company's website appeared to go offline and instead showed an announcement that "The system is being hacked." Victims of the scam, many of whom lost all their savings, have stated that they have been unable to contact company representatives since November 20.
They claimed that the company changed its name from Earn Bitcoin to Payslash and eventually to PSlash three times. They said the company's agents and executives always assured them that the company was registered with the SECP.
A lawyer representing one of the victims said the first complaint against PSlash for suspicious activity was filed with the FIA on August 24, while the second complaint was filed with the PTA on September 16.
However, the FIA and PTA failed to take timely action against PSlash, causing 100,000 people to lose their hard-earned money, the lawyer added. “If the departments involved had acted accordingly, these trillion rupees losses would not have occurred in Peshawar,” he said.
"Now the government must investigate this issue and punish the officials involved ... thousands of people have lost money for their negligence." A senior FIA official in Peshawar has confirmed that the fraud is worth Rs. 5.6 billion, but declined to explain why the agency failed to act, despite a formal complaint received a few months ago.
Likewise, a PTA spokesperson also admitted that the regulator had received a complaint about the company in September.
