130 cheated job seekers rescued, nine frauds held

The Rapid Action Battalion claimed to have detained nine people for deceiving 130 people in the name of giving them jobs and confining them to their office in the capital's Mirpur yesterday.

Rab officials said the detainees opened an office of their organisation named Victoria Crockery Ltd for selling crockery and electronics items.  They took between Tk 20,000 and one lakh from each of the victims, mostly teenagers, as security money to appoint them to their organisation as salesmen.

But they did not recruit the jobseekers. Instead, they had confined the victims to their office and their rented houses for the last couple of days, said the elite force officials. 

Hazrat Ali, chairman of Victoria Crockery Ltd and three directors among the detainees. 

Mohammad Shahabuddin, senior assistant director of Rab-2, said on information, a Rab team raided the office on the fourth and fifth floors of Amena Plaza in Mirpur-10 around 6:00pm, detained the nine and rescued the victims.

One of the victims, Nazrul Islam, told journalists that he came to know about the organisation from a friend. Nazrul, of Barisal, claimed that he gave the organisation Tk 56,000 as security money.  Although the organisation arranged accommodation and food for them, they were not given jobs as promised, he said.

Some victims said the authorities of the organisation also trained the victims at the office on how to sell goods to customers for two hours every day. 

They added that some agents of the organisation took them to the office from different parts of the country in the name of giving them jobs there. The agents worked for the organisation in exchange for "commission".  

Hazrat Ali told reporters that the rescued people were employees of another organisation named Smooth whose offices had been in Uttara and Nikunja.

He added that its owners went into hiding after taking money from the victims.