CHHAGALNAIYA, Bangladesh — A fraud ring posing as a microfinance organization swindled hundreds of villagers in Chhagalnaiya upazila of Feni district by promising low-interest loans, police and victims said.
Loans were to be disbursed on the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 14, but staff of the outfit, which called itself “Samaj Kalyan Unnayan Sangstha,” disappeared by midday. Many victims who had gathered at the office broke down in tears once they realized they had been cheated.
No valid registration or approval for the organization could be found, police said. Savings books handed to depositors listed the head office as D-Block, Mirpur-2, Dhaka, with the postal code 1216.
Victims said a group of men had been canvassing the area for the past two days, signing up members in the name of the NGO. For an enrollment fee of 200 taka and a deposit of 11,000 taka, depositors were promised a loan of 1 lakh taka (100,000 taka) repayable in easy installments over two years.
Ratna Begum of Banshpara village in the municipality said the recruiters took 53,000 taka from her against a promised loan of 16 lakh taka. Md. Tipu of Radhanagar union said the operators collected 22,000 taka from him, 22,000 taka from Jesmin Jahan and 60,000 taka from Anjum Ara of Hisachhara, among more than 100 customers, taking a total of about 5 lakh taka. He said depositors were taken to an office in Samsul Haq Mansion in the Thana Para neighborhood, where loans were to be handed out at 4 p.m. “But when we got there, the office was padlocked and no one was inside,” he said.
Suman, a resident of the same area, said he was at a loss after falling for the scam. Repeated calls to mobile numbers used by the outfit went unanswered, with all the numbers switched off. Anjum Ara Begum filed a complaint at Chhagalnaiya police station on behalf of the victims.
Chhagalnaiya police station Officer-in-Charge Md. Abul Bashar said one victim had filed a written complaint alleging that a fake NGO had collected money from many people. “We are taking the matter seriously,” he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report