He used to travel in a helicopter from Dhaka to remote towns and introduced himself as the CEO of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.

He then convinced people to invest in different projects of the council and allegedly swindled them out of crores of taka.

Rubel Ahmed, known among locals in Kushtia, Magura and Khagrachari districts as Helicopter Rubel, was arrested in the capital's Uttara on sunday night by the Economic Crime and Human Trafficking Division of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of police.

Officers caught him after a case was filed with Airport Police Station accusing him of fraud, said Towhidul Islam, additional deputy commissioner of CTTC.

According to the case statement, Rubel, who is from Shariatpur, visited Betbaria area of Kushtia with seven or eight others and led people to believe that he was working on projects to build houses, schools, and dams to help people affected by climate change.

He then asked his victims to invest in the projects. Investigators suspect that he might have taken several crores from locals in Kushtia, Magura and Khagrachari.

Police have found various documents of the Canadian organisation in his possession.