RAWALPINDI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has broken up a fraud ring whose members were passing themselves off as representatives of the Italian embassy, arresting the alleged ringleader along with eight accomplices in Rawalpindi.

According to the FIA, the group approached a citizen with the promise of arranging travel to Italy and extracted Rs4.5 million from him before the scheme unravelled.

The operation was launched after the Italian embassy filed a formal complaint with the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), which prompted the FIA action.

The agency said cases have been registered against those arrested and that further investigation is under way, including efforts to establish how many other applicants may have been targeted using the same pitch.

Immigration fraud built around the names of foreign missions remains a persistent problem in Pakistan, where demand for legal routes to Europe is high and awareness of official procedures is often low.

Investigators routinely remind applicants that no embassy appoints private agents to collect money on its behalf, and that all visa fees are payable only through officially notified channels.