Fact Check: Video of looting of equipment after a raid on fake call centre in Pakistan is going viral with misleading claim

Recently, Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) raided a fake call centre in HiTec City of Hyderabad and arrested 63 employees of the company. The agents were impersonating PayPal customer care representatives to target the Non-Resident Indians and US citizens and defraud them.

Meanwhile, a video from neighbouring country Pakistan is going viral on social media claiming a Chinese businessman opened a call centre in Pakistan and subsequently the centre was looted by locals.

Claim in Hindi: “चीन ने 🇵🇰पाकिस्तान में कॉल सेंटर खोला। लेकिन जिहादी,आतंकवादी, लुटेरे, चोर भिखारी कहां मानने वाले थे, सब कुछ लूट लिया..”

(China opened a call centre in Pakistan, but locals ran away with all the equipment).

The viral claim link is here and the archive link here.

Here’s the screenshot of the viral post.

Fact Check:

During the investigation, the Telugupost fact check team found the claim that the call centre was looted by locals is partially true.

As the video of a mob running away with the technical equipment from the busted fake call centre in Islamabad city of Pakistan trended on X (formerly Twitter), we decided to check what the local media says about the incident.

Using relevant keywords in Google Search, we came across an article on Indian Express news portal reporting on the fake call centre in Islamabad.

According to an Indian Express article posted on March 17, 2025, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided a fake call centre being run by “Chinese” nationals in sector F-11 of Islamabad on March 15, 2025 and detained over 24 people, including foreign nationals. The call centre reportedly employed Pakistani locals to scam people in several countries.

We then turned to Pakistani media to understand what happened during the raid. ‘The Nation’ reported that, “The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and intelligence agencies conducted a joint raid at a scamming center in Islamabad’s sector F-11 on Saturday (March 15, 2025).

It also noted that FIA could not stop the locals from breaking the security and looting the equipment of the fake call centre and during the chaos some of the foreigners, allegedly involved in operating the call centre, managed to escape from the scene.

As we continued our search on social media, especially X, we came across a long post tweeted by Pakistan Voice (@PakVoice_org)

It says, “In the videos recorded after the raid, local residents and employees were seen taking away computers, electronic equipment, and furniture. Some media channels labeled this as "looting," but the reality was quite different. When the employees learned that the company they were working for was involved in fraud and that the senior management had fled, they took the valuable items from the premises. They feared that the place would soon be shut down and that they might not receive their wages.”

In the light of the above investigation and media reports, it is evident that the people did not storm a legit Chinese call centre and looted computers, monitors and power extensions, among other things. As per local reports, the staff working at the centre, walked away with the electronic equipment assuming they might not receive their salaries. Hence, the claim made in the viral post is partially true.