Police have arrested two members of an organized fraud ring that posed as a prison guard and a lawyer to extort large sums of money from families under the guise of arranging bail for jailed inmates. The arrests were made by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP) Detective Cyber and Special Crime (North) division.
Those arrested are Md. Abdus Salam, 49, and Md. Suruj, 26.
They were arrested during a special operation Thursday in the Kaliganj police station area of Gazipur district. Three mobile phones used in the scam were recovered from their possession.
The DMP media division released the information Friday (Sept. 4).
According to Detective Branch (DB) sources, the ring’s fraud technique was highly elaborate and novel. Members of the group had long been collecting the mobile numbers of local elected representatives from various areas via government websites. They would then call these representatives under some pretext to gather information about accused individuals in various cases from those areas.
After obtaining information about the accused, they would contact the victims’ families, with one member posing as “Saiful,” a prison guard at the main gate of Kashimpur Jail. They would convince family members that bail for their relative had been arranged not through a designated lawyer, but through “Siraj,” a lawyer with a human rights organization.
Family members would then contact the mobile number of another member posing as the lawyer, who would speak in a very gentle tone, falsely inform them that bail had been secured, and, citing a tight deadline to complete the court process, urge them to send money quickly. Victims, in good faith, would send money to a nearby shop’s personal bKash number, and the scammers would withdraw it within moments, switch off their phones and flee the area.
DB police said the elaborate scam came to their attention while investigating a bKash and Nagad fraud case filed at Hatirjheel police station on July 1. Using technological assistance, investigators identified and arrested the accused. Those arrested have multiple prior fraud cases against them and have been sent to court.
Following the incident, DMP Deputy Commissioner of the Media and Public Relations Division, Md. Aktar Hossain, advised citizens to remain vigilant. “Avoid making any financial transactions with someone whose identity you cannot verify,” he said. “If you have any doubts about someone’s identity online or over the phone, verify it immediately through your local law enforcement, and if you have been scammed, notify police promptly.”