Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has arrested three people over fraud, the use of forged documents and migrant smuggling in connection with sending workers to Jordan.
A team from the CID’s human-trafficking monitoring cell arrested them on Sunday (June 14) at about 4 p.m. in a raid on “Surah Travels and Traders,” located at Rupayan Millennium Square in North Badda, the CID said.
The information was disclosed in a press release on Monday (June 15).
Those arrested are Manjur Pradhania, 35, son of the late Abdur Razzak Pradhania of Munshirhat village in Chandpur Sadar; Md Osman Goni, 25, son of Md Faizullah of Fatepur village in Chandpur’s Kachua; and Kazi Md Ata-i-Rabbi, 28, son of the late Kazi Abul Kashem of Adalatpur village in Chandraganj of Lakshmipur district, the CID said.
Initial investigation found that Surah Travels and Traders had been collecting between Tk 2 lakh and Tk 2.5 lakh per person by forging the name, logo and seal of Jerash Garments and Fashion Manufacturing Company Limited, based at the Al-Tajamouat Industrial Estate in Amman, Jordan, and luring people with the promise of jobs on worker visas in Jordan, according to the CID.
Jerash Garments and Fashion Manufacturing Company Limited filed a complaint over the matter through the Bangladesh embassy in Jordan. The complaint was then forwarded through the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment to the relevant authorities, after which the CID’s human-trafficking monitoring cell began an inquiry, the CID said.
Initial investigation also found that although Surah Travels and Traders was essentially a travel agency, it had no valid recruiting license. Despite this, the agency had been advertising on its Facebook page to send workers to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Malaysia and other countries, the CID said.
In the raid, conducted on specific information, 55 Bangladeshi passports, 16 overseas-travel agreements on non-judicial stamps, two CPUs and one DVR were seized from the agency’s office. Of the seized passports, 18 belonged to people seeking to go to Jordan and the rest to people seeking to go to Saudi Arabia, according to initial findings.
The investigation found that, despite lacking a valid recruiting license and the necessary approvals, the accused had been collecting passports by luring people with the promise of overseas employment, which is believed to have been done for the purpose of migrant smuggling, the CID said.
The CID has filed a case at Badda police station against the three named accused and four or five unidentified people.
The CID’s investigation to identify and arrest others involved in the offense is continuing, and the case remains under investigation.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report