Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Crime Wing has arrested a gang in Jatoi, Muzzafargarh, for purportedly teaching black magic on several YouTube channels and engaging in other related nefarious activities, as reported by DAWN.
The gang’s YouTube channels offered a complete course in black magic to learn witchcraft, from which it had built a thriving business based on online subscriptions and reviews.
FIA Assistant Director, Adnan Khan, had deployed ASI Rai Muhammad Tanveer to locate the gang that was operating from its studios at Mehrab Hotel. The suspects were identified as Amir Raza, Irfan Shah, Jahangir Akhtar, Mehr Ghulam Mustafa, Muhammad Shahbaz, and Muhammad Shah.
FIA found that they had earned millions of rupees from their channel and social media users who were interested in learning black magic. They had also scammed people by offering paid access to ‘premium videos’ and selling ‘wands’, ‘owl blood’, and ‘owl meat’ for sorcery rituals. One of the channels that offered tricks to acquire the power to attract gold deposits had 200,000 subscribers.
Besides this, the gang’s clientele included childless people and individuals desirous of love marriages. It was learned that the gang had even blackmailed numerous female clients by taking pictures and recording videos of them for money.
The locals had observed a change in the lifestyle of the suspects as they started living extravagantly and purchased farmlands, plots, and luxury cars.
The FIA’s Crime Wing has suspended more than a dozen of the gang’s channels and has filed a case against the perpetrators under sections 419, 420, 468, and 471 of the Pakistan Penal Code; sections 3 and 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act; and sections 4, 17 and 21 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.
