DB arrests three fraudsters
The arrested are Azizul Hasan alias Emran, Beauty Akhter, and Kabir Uddin Piyas
The Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has arrested three members of a fraud gang which was taking money from people with promises of jobs with an intelligence agency and an organisation serving disabled people.
Police arrested the three – Azizul Hasan alias Emran, Beauty Akhter, and Kabir Uddin Piyas – raiding different areas of the capital on Thursday.
During the drives, they seized Tk19 lakh in cash and various documents related to fake recruitments.
At a press conference later, Harun-ur-Rashid, chief of the Detective Branch, said, "We came to know from a source that a gang of fraudsters was taking money from people, supposedly recruiting them for two non-governmental organisations called Fairfax Bangladesh Project and Bangladesh Disabled Welfare Trust, in Mirpur of the capital."
The fraudsters gave recruitment advertisements in print media, he added.
In primary interrogation, the arrested said that on 15 June, they published a recruitment advertisement for 6,472 positions in the private intelligence agency, Fairfax Bangladesh Project.
The advertisement said it was approved by the Government of Bangladesh.
At the same time, they published another recruitment advertisement for 1,944 posts on a fake website for Bangladesh Disabled Welfare Trust.
Later the advertisement was published in various job magazines and on social media.
In these two advertisements, they asked job seeking candidates to deposit Tk150 to Tk500 in a Sonali Bank account by pay order, for each position applied for.
In both the recruitment advertisements, a house address in Mirpur was given as an office address for the two organisations.
The owner of that house is an American expatriate who lodged a general diary with Kafrul police station after coming to know about the fake recruitment advertisements.
The Bangladesh Disability Welfare Trust or the Fairfax Bangladesh Project do not exist at that address.
Responding to a question, the DB chief said, in order to open such an account at any government bank, one has to submit a number of required documents which the bank did not retain from the fraudsters.
According to a Detective Branch source, the gang embezzled a total of Tk24 lakh. Of that, the fraudsters spent TK4 lakh.