2 govt officials held for stealing Tk 2.20cr
Police arrested two government officials in Dinajpur on Monday for transferring around Tk 2.2 crore digitally from the state treasury over the last two years by forging documents, user IDs and passwords.
The arrestees are Amirul Islam, 34, cash officer of Dinajpur M Abdur Rahim Medical College Hospital, and Mahfuzur Rahman, 42, audit officer of the district accounts and finance department.
Officials of Detective Branch of police in Dinajpur interrogated the duo and produced them before a court, seeking seven days' remand each, said Imam Zafar, officer-in-charge of Dinajpur DB.
The remand hearing will take place today, he added.
Saiful Islam, the district accounts and finance officer who first detected their scheme on January 31, filed the case with Kotwali Police Station on Monday night.
In the first information report (FIR), Saiful mentioned that Amirul used to handle payments of more than 700 employees, including doctors, nurses, officials and staffers of the hospital.
As part of his job, he was connected with officials of the district accounts and finance department. Amirul built close ties with Mahfuzur to misappropriate funds from the state treasury. Later, they teamed up and collected user IDs and passwords. Afterwards, they also made fake user IDs and passwords using fake national ID cards to transfer funds digitally.
Recently, Amirul submitted a fake bill with a fake national ID number along with other payment documents of M Abdur Rahim Medical College Hospital. Later, Mahfuzur digitally transferred the money to the mentioned account, using the user ID and password, according to the FIR.
On January 31, Amirul collected the cheque of Tk 9,87,680 from the district accounts and finance department against the documents. As the submitted documents raised suspicion, Saiful immediately requested the manager of Sonali Bank Limited's corporate branch in Dinajpur not to cash the cheque and the bank also halted the payment.
Later, the district accounts and finance department found that the duo transferred at least Tk 2,19,69,428 digitally to an account from February 3, 2019, to 31 January 2021.
Dr Mujahidul Islam, director of the medical college hospital, said after learning of the incident, he checked the account and found no irregularities in the hospital's funds.
Saiful told The Daily Star over phone that they were investigating the incident and were yet to find where the funds had been transferred. But he said Amirul and Mahfuzur had been transferring the funds digitally for the last two years, at the beginning of each months.
The DB of Dinajpur is investigating the incident.
Imam Zafar, officer-in-charge of Dinajpur DB, said they were interrogating the arrestees.
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