A teen and his terrible desires!

He is only 17 years old. He was supposed to sit for his Secondary School Certificate exams from a reputed school in Bogura. But at such a young age, he has close associations with cybercriminals.

Quite familiar with the dark web, he controls his criminal network from 52 fake Facebook accounts and 22 e-mail IDs. The teen is also a member of a hacking group called the "White Devil". He has an addiction to adventure.

This is the boy who masterminded the recent robbery attempt in Bogura's Rupali Bank. The arrested teenager gave all the information to police 18 days after the incident.

On 5 January, an attempt was made to rob a branch of Rupali Bank at Sabekpara in Gabtali upazila by throwing acid and stabbing two Ansar security guards.

Since then, the police had been on a hunt for those involved in the incident.

On Friday, Bogura police and detectives in a joint operation arrested him from Gazipur. The police revealed information about him after a primary interrogation.

Such shocking revelations about the young boy left even crime experts of Bogura police flabbergasted.

When he was produced in the Gabtali Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court, he candidly admitted everything.

He was later sent to jail. Police said he may be sent to a juvenile detention centre because of his age.

When contacted, Abdur Razzak, officer-in-charge of Bogura Detective Branch of Police, said his name and address were being kept secret as he is under 18 years of age.

He was an SSC candidate from a reputed school in Bogura. He is also very good at scouting, scientific research, and information technology.

The bank robbery in Gabtali was part of the arrested teenager's adventure. For this reason, he prepared himself by watching the Bollywood movie "Dhoom-3", made with sophisticated visual effects, 154 times, Abdur Razzak informed.

Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan acted in the thrilling sequences in Dhoom-3 heavily enhanced by the latest VFX. E-bikes, which run equally on land and water, were used to capture the scenes of the robbery in the movie.

Originally, watching the movie and wandering around the dark web, the teenager got an incitement to take a risky "adventure" of bank robbery.

He climbed to the roof of the bank branch wearing a mask and special gloves for climbing. Using these gloves, one does not have to use a ladder to climb walls, like Spiderman. After that, he broke open the rooftop door and entered inside. But he failed to break the vault inside the bank.

The arrested teenager further told the police that he used the experience taken from the dark web to throw nitrogen solution on the Ansar security guards.

It burns the body as well as causes heavy smoke. Like tear gas, this acid is also made in the teen's own lab. He also threw acetone alkaline solution, a chemical substance, on the walls and floors of the bank to make them slippery.

The teen's free roaming on the dark web

The arrested teenager had been roaming freely on the dark web.

The dark web is a part of the Internet where there is no search engine, and no ordinary browser can access it. Since one's identity can be hidden on the dark web, one can carry on with criminal and prohibited acts there.

The Bogura boy has been interested in cybercrimes for quite some time. He hacked the main server of one of the top private mobile phone operators in Bangladesh through a link found on the dark web a few years ago. He claimed that the telecom company lost control of its main server for eight hours due to the hacking.

Through his hacking group the "White Devil" on the dark web, he wanted to be listed as one of the top criminals in the world. He used an international online platform to bring various dangerous chemicals such as perchloric acid, chloroform, adenol ethanol and potassium dichromate on demand from Russia. He used to conduct research in his private lab using the chemicals.

He also ordered the e-bike featured in the film "Dhoom-3" and state-of-the-art surveillance tools from China, using an international online platform. However, he could not get his hands on those as Bangladesh Customs did not permit them to be bought. His collection included various surveillance equipment, knives and vests that are used by special police teams and members of the army. He also bought a taser-gun from a Bangladeshi e-commerce site. It is possible to incapacitate any human being using the high voltage shock from the taser-gun.

During police interrogation, the teenager said he had a special interest in nuclear science and regularly studied it. Through the dark web he collected some banned books. Notable among these were Brittanica, The Light USA, The Unknown, The Versa, La Diaga, Critix. He had to learn Russian while studying these.

At the same time, he would write a thesis note and submit it through the dark web to make a nuclear bomb. His 23-page article and three-page design sold for about $8,500 via the dark web – which in Bangladeshi currency is a little more than Tk7.5 lakh. He withdrew the money through his mother's account in a private bank in the country.

After that, through the dark web, he needed some more thesis materials. He bought those and spent hours with cybercriminals to learn something new.

The teen told the police that he was as capable of defending himself as an army commando – being able to craft a double-barrelled gun with an AC converter rim in just 30 minutes. At the same time he claimed to be able to make anesthetic gas with the AC compressor gas; anyone who is sprayed on with it will lose consciousness for a certain period of time.

Another of his adeptness is being able to make instant fire with various chemical mixes. It is a liquid which can be used to ignite fire on any object including soil, sand, water and concrete. Using this instant fire, he tried to light another fire in the same bank two-three months ago.

Bogura Superintendent of Police Ali Asraf Bhuiyan said: "We are really surprised by the boy's activities. At this age, such big plans for crime is unthinkable."

Ali Asraf Bhuiyan added that the special team of Bogura police had to work very hard to catch him. Inspector (investigation) Anwar Hossain of Gabtali police station, led by Additional Superintendent of Police Ali Haider Chowdhury, was able to identify the boy after 18 days of trying.

The teen was more cunning than a professional criminal. He failed to carry out a bank robbery due to back injury. Later he came to Bogura and took shelter in the house of a friend. From there he was treated at Bogua Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College Hospital under a pseudonym. He then fled by bus to his uncle's house in Tongi, Gazipur. There he severed all connections with his online contacts and planned to escape to India secretly using an e-passport.

He finally got caught on the basis of his regular nightly chat with a female friend. Using that one source was the police able to arrest the boy.

No one in his family has contacted the police since his arrest.