PESHAWAR, April 28: Incidents of cyber-crimes have increased in recent years and many people are reported to have fallen prey to international rings and lost their money. Although the government has drafted the Electronic Crime Act 2004 to control cyber-related crimes, but it failed to present it in the National Assembly for approval.

Hundreds of people in the country have been receiving messages from different countries through the Internet, congratulating them on winning lotteries.

These foreigners usually lured innocent Pakistanis to submit a claim with a bank for a huge amount left by a rich man who died accidentally and that the sender of the email would provide him assistance in getting a certain percentage of the money from the huge fortune.

A few days ago, a lecturer of the Pakistan Air Force Inter Collage in Kohat, Syed Shafiq Shah, had written a letter to the director, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Malik Naveed, asking him to help in getting back his money he had paid to an international gang of criminals during the last few months.

The gang ensnared Shafiq Shah through an Internet message, congratulating him on winning a lottery of 850,000 euros. The message asked Shah to contact a man called Van Morgan in Amsterdam through his email or cellular phone.

Mr Shah in his written complaint to the FIA stated that initially Mr Morgan asked him to send 550 euros as a fee for the personal identification. He made arrangements and send the amount to a bank account identified by him.

When he made the payment, one Paul Van Brook, claiming to be a bank official, sent him a fax containing the account number and the PIN code number from summary-online bank BV, Mr Shah maintained.

He stated that during the last few months, he had sent 13,050 euros to Mr Brook and Mr Morgan, but had not yet received the lottery amount of 850,000 euros.

Now Mr Morgan was demanding 15,818 euros more and said that without paying that amount he would not be able to get the lottery money, he added in his complaint letter.

Mr Shah said that he had sold out his property and wife’s jewellery and borrowed money from his friends as a result of which he was able to arrange 13,050 euros only. So he decided to give up the lottery amount and demanded Mr Morgan to pay back the money he had paid so far.

Mr Shah said that he had the contact numbers of these foreigners and the receipts of payments made to the Dutch nationals.

“The FIA can neither launch investigations into the case nor can take up the issue with the Netherlands government,” official sources told Dawn here on Thursday.