Pakistani court sentences Chinese citizen to six years in prison

KARACHI: A court in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi sentenced a Chinese citizen to six years in jail for committing cyber terrorism and ATM skimming, officials told Arab News on Wednesday, informing that the judge declared another Chinese citizen as absconder in the case.
“A Chinese, named Liu Linan, has been given six years and three months in prison under three different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PCC),” prosecutor Mirza Tanveer Hussain told Arab News, adding: “The court also slapped Rs1.2 million of fine on him.”
“One of the accused has been declared an absconder,” he continued.
Linan was arrested for using skimming devices to steal money from ATMs in the Defense area of the city in 2018.
In January this year, a sessions court in Karachi acquitted three Chinese nationals who were charged with cyber terrorism and ATM skimming due to lack of evidence.
In January 2018, however, officials of law enforcement agencies told Arab News that they believed a Chinese criminal network was skimming ATM machines in Pakistan.
Two Chinese nationals were caught by the manager of a local bank in downtown Karachi in January 2018 and handed over to the police and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
“For a moment, I thought we may face embarrassment when we were on our way to arrest them,” Salman Waheed, a police officer at the station house to which the two thieves were taken, had told Arab News back then. “We are usually expected to help and protect Chinese nationals in Pakistan.”
China is Pakistan’s major regional ally and the opening of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has seen an influx of Chinese nationals into the country.
In ATM skimming, hidden electronic devices are attached to automated teller machines which steal personal information from cards inserted into a fake reader placed over the machine’s actual card slot.