Three more foreigners arrested
The Rapid Action Battalion yesterday held three more Africans from the capital's Moghbazar for staying illegally in the country.
Of them, Zordge Martin, 35, and David Kon, 44, are from Liberia and Jabir Khamis, 32, from Chad.
A team of the elite force raided a house at Nayatola and detained the trio, as they failed to produce any valid document like passport, visa or stay permit, said Mohiuddin Ahmed, deputy director of Rab-3, at a press briefing at the Rab-3 headquarters in Tikatuli.
Law enforcers also detained Partha Kumar Saha, 46, for renting out his flat to the foreigners without verifying documents for their stay in Bangladesh.
Khamis entered the country in 2009 and Martin in January 2013 with on-arrival visas that were valid for a month. Kon came here in January last year as a tourist with a three-month stay permit.
They did not renew their documents but continued to stay in Bangladesh, Mohiuddin said. “We are investigating whether they have been involved in any criminal activities.”
The detainees told Rab officials that they had been trading in garments -- buying them here and then sending those to their home countries for sale at higher prices, the Rab official said.
He at the briefing urged house owners to verify documents of foreigners before renting out apartments or rooms to them to avoid any hassle.
On November 14, the Detective Branch of police detained 31 foreigners, from 10 African nations, for their illegal stay in the country. Six of them were released later after they showed legal documents.
Many foreigners involved in killing, drug peddling, smuggling and other fraudulent activities have recently come to the notice of law enforcers, said law-enforcement agencies.
As many as one lakh foreigners, mostly from Africa and Southeast Asian nations, have been living in the country illegally for years, said officials at the Special Branch of police. Around 8,000 African nationals are living in the country and many of them are involved in killing, mugging, smuggling, fake note manufacturing and operating illegal VoIP (voice over internet protocol) business in the capital.
The African nationals entered Bangladesh as football players or students while others came with tourist visas but did not leave the country before the expiry of their visas or stay permits.
In many cases, they destroyed their passports and other documents so that law enforcers could not verify their nationalities and repatriate them upon arrest for criminal offences, intelligence officials say.
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