LAHORE: A judicial magistrate on Monday extended the physical remand of a suspect in an alleged Rs35 billion fraud involving the online sale of counterfeit US postage labels.

Earlier, the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) produced the suspect, Faheem Akram, before the court on completion of his previous five-day remand.

The agency also produced a recently arrested co-suspect, Naeem, before the court for his first physical remand.

Magistrate Naeem Wattoo granted the NCCIA the physical remand of both suspects till Oct 30.

The agency alleged that key suspect Akram had allegedly been operating a website, LabelsBank.com, since August 2023 to sell counterfeit US postage labels. He said more than five million fake postal tickets had been sold through the website.

According to the US Department of Justice, Akram was indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida in September 2026 over the alleged sale of more than 5.1 million counterfeit postage labels, which prosecutors say caused losses exceeding $126 million to the US Postal Service.

US prosecutors allege that the website sold the labels for around $2 each, regardless of a package’s weight, size or destination. A US court order authorised the seizure and shutdown of the website.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2026