Pakistan’s software industry body has warned that the cybercrime crackdown on scam call centres is sweeping up legitimate technology companies, putting the country’s fastest-growing export industry at risk. In a statement on Monday, the Pakistan Software Houses Association, known as P@SHA, said National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency teams have raided registered software firms, entered offices without showing warrants, held staff for hours and taken laptops, servers and phones away, in some cases from offices where investigators found nothing unlawful. The association backs action against fraud; its complaint is about method. IT exports hit a record 4.6 billion dollars last fiscal year, and the government wants 10 billion dollars by fiscal 2029.
What the industry says happened
Member companies have reported the same pattern, according to P@SHA. Teams arrive without showing a warrant. Employees are held and questioned for hours. Laptops, servers and mobile phones are taken into custody, even when the search finds nothing unlawful. The association says the seizures halt client delivery, put confidential foreign client data at risk and create fear among employees and investors. These are the association’s allegations; the NCCIA had not responded when the first reports were published. Its chairman, Dr Shoab Ahmed Khan, put the stakes in one line: “Every single dollar is earned on trust. A foreign client who hears that his vendor’s office was raided and its servers taken away does not wait for the forensic report.”
The crackdown behind the complaint
The crackdown itself is real, and it is large. In late October the NCCIA arrested 89 suspects in a nationwide sweep of illegal call centres. On 3 November its teams raided a call centre in the PECHS area of Karachi and arrested 273 people, including more than 100 women and 42 minors, in an alleged international fraud network using spoofed calls to steal card data. A magistrate later ordered many of those detained released, and nine key suspects were given a two-day remand. The agency says about 350 call centres in Karachi are involved in scamming. The dispute is over where the line falls between a scam front and a real exporter, and who checks before the door is forced.
The maths that makes the industry nervous
IT exports reached a record 4.6 billion dollars in fiscal year 2025-26, up about 21 percent from 3.81 billion dollars the year before, according to State Bank data. That is close to half of Pakistan’s 10 billion dollars in total services exports. The government, under its Uraan Pakistan plan, targets 10 billion dollars in annual IT exports by fiscal 2029. Getting from 4.6 billion to 10 billion dollars in three years needs about 30 percent growth a year; the sector grew about 21 percent last year. At 21 percent a year, exports would reach about 8.1 billion dollars by fiscal 2029, about 1.9 billion short. July and August receipts of 811 million dollars were up 17.4 percent, already below the needed pace. October remittances of $3.89 billion covered the whole trade gap that month, a reminder of how much Pakistan leans on dollar inflows that need no container or customs form. IT earnings are the same kind of inflow: they depend on a client abroad trusting the office will still be open tomorrow.
The verification paradox
The NCCIA itself has said that some fraud operators register their businesses as IT companies. P@SHA’s point: that admission makes careful verification more important, not less. A registration alone proves nothing, but neither does a room full of laptops and a night shift. P@SHA wants the agency to check a company’s registration with the Pakistan Software Export Board and with the association through a designated focal person before any raid. It wants court warrants and agreed procedures for searches of registered firms, data copied on site instead of hardware removed, and unrelated devices returned within seven days. In 2021 it condemned FIA raids on IT companies in Karachi and asked for a transparent investigation. Five years later, the agency has a new name and the complaint is the same.
What happens next
P@SHA has asked for an urgent joint meeting with the Minister for IT and Telecom, the Interior Ministry and the NCCIA director general, and will share its members’ specific cases. Exporters did get one break last week, when the SME export rule was scrapped, removing the 80 percent export condition that stood between small exporters and a loan. Three tests will tell: the agency’s reply, a check before the next raid rather than after it, and the export number itself. The tech sector has already braced for a possible FBR mobile import ban, and it now waits to see whether the state that wants its dollars can tell its exporters apart from its fraudsters. More business and economy news from Pakistan
