Police arrest ring defrauding Tk1cr from govt employees
Police have recently arrested two of a gang that allegedly defrauded some retired and in-service government employees and their family members of some Tk1 crore by stealing their bank account details.
Police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in a drive on Saturday detained the duo, including the mastermind Ismail Matubbar alias Asif Iqbal, from Madaripur's Shibchar.
After primary interrogation, CID Special Superintendent of Police Muhammad Rezaul Masud on Sunday briefed the reporters at the CID headquarters in the capital.
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Police said the ring first used to collect the victims' bank account information from a list that the Bangladesh Employees Welfare Board once published on its website as a government grant notice.
Later, they, pretending to be the board officials, made phone calls to the employees and their family members and collected information about their debit and credit cards against those accounts.
"While making the illegal transaction from the accounts, the criminals needed the one-time passwords [OTP] automatically sent to the account holders' cell phones. They would collect the codes over the phone by fooling the victims using their fake identities," Rezaul Masud said.
He further added that during the interrogation, Ismail Matubbar alias Asif Iqbal confessed that they embezzled about Tk1 crore this way.
Iqbal was also arrested earlier for involvement in fraudulent activities. Later, he came out on bail and continued criminal activities, police said.
