Mobile banking scammer held in city

They used to target female subscribers of mobile banking and financial services.

Using cloned Sim cards and identifying themselves as mobile banking officials, they used to swindle unassuming victims into traps using fake dial codes and doctored links to collect private security codes. Following this, they would siphon money off their accounts.

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-3) yesterday claimed to have learned about these innovative techniques of a fraud gang after arresting its ringleader from the capital's Mirpur late on Thursday night.

A team of Rab-3 arrested Md Sohel Ahmed (36) from a first-floor flat of a five-storeyed house in Mirpur-1, said Lt Col Rakibul Hasan, director of Rab-3.

The elite force also recovered a laptop, one multi-SIM gateway device, a signal buster, three modems and a huge number of Sim cards and equipment from his possession.

Addressing a briefing at Rab-3 headquarters in the capital's Tikatuli, Lt Col Rakibul said Sohel and his gang members used to collect cellphone numbers of mobile banking users from mobile banking agents. Their targets were those who used to transact large amounts of money or transferred money regularly each month.

After this, they would clone the official number of different mobile banking service providers and call the users, mostly those who receive funds, posing as officials of the service providers, Col Rakibul said.

"They usually targeted users who were regular recipients of funds through mobile banking or financial services," he added. 

"The gang members then used to convince users, saying things like "You have received a bonus for regular transaction on your account," or "your sender has pressed a wrong number, due to which you did not get the money," said Lt Col Rakibul.

"Once the users fell into their trap, the gang members asked the users to 'dial a code' or sometimes click a link. As soon as they entered the code or link, the fraudsters got the PIN code, and transferred money into their own accounts," he said.

The Rab-3 director said they have confirmed identities of five members from Sohel in primary interrogation.

Regarding the gang, Rakibul said there might be three to four such gangs in the capital. "We are also investigating whether any mobile baking users are involved with the gang or not," he added.

According to Rab-3 officials, Sohel was involved in such activities since 2017, but never got arrested.

"We have also come to know that Sohel bought land and property in Tongi and Gazipur using the money he collected from the fraudulence," ABM Faijul Islam, deputy director of Rab-3, told The Daily Star.

Asked about the sum of money they have collected, Faijul said that primary investigations revealed that the gang members targeted five to ten users per month for the last three years, and conned at least 200 users.

"We did not get the exact amount, but Sohel informed us they only target those users whose transaction amounts were at least Tk 50,000. We will be able to give the exact number after further investigation," said the Rab-3 official.

"We have also located another operating place of the gang; we would conduct drive after pinpointing its exact location," said Faiul Islam.

"The gang managed to evade arrest as they always used to close the Sim cards after using it for calling a single user," he said.

The gang members were also expert in hiding their location through "bouncing" the calls, for which law enforcers found it difficult to locate them, said the Rab-3 official.

"We are also investigating the role of Sim card distributors, as we found a member of the gang used to work as a Sim card distributor of a mobile operator in the past," added the deputy director.