The allure of a million-dollar gift
Along with some Bangladeshis, a group of foreign nationals have formed organised rackets and swindling crores of taka from people through duping them on social media.
After coming to the country, these foreign nationals, mostly from African countries, throw their passports away. They then recruit educated Bangladeshis by saying that they would start a business.
Later they rent luxurious apartments as "offices" and convince the Bangladeshis to become their accomplices with a promise of lucrative payment.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) claimed to have come up with the information while investigating over dozens of complaints by people, who were deceived by these syndicates.
Since July 2, teams of CID have arrested around 33 African nationals, including from Cameroon, Kenya and Nigeria, from different areas of Dhaka on charges of duping people out of crores of taka.
On Wednesday night, the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit arrested two Nigerians and a Bangladeshi from the capital's Bashundhara area over similar charges.
The arrestees are Albert Ikechukwu alias Eze (31), Okechukwu Christian alias Chukwama (28), and their Bangladeshi associate Nupur Khanam (23).
They have collected over crores of taka through swindling people on Facebook over the last two years, Najmul Islam, additional deputy commissioner of Social Media Monitoring and Cyber Security Crime Department of CTTC unit, told The Daily Star on Wednesday.
'THE MILLION DOLLAR GIFT'
About the process of the scam, CID officials said the arrestees are members of an organised racket, who swindle money from people in the name of developing friendship on social media and alluring them with expensive gifts.
They befriend people, pretending to be citizens of countries like the US or UK.
After a while, they call people through their Bangladeshi associates and identify themselves as custom officials to collect money as customs duty for the expensive gifts, said investigators.
For the last two weeks, over dozens of people have submitted complaints to the CID control room in this regard, said Sheikh Md Rezaul Haider, additional deputy inspector general of CID. These rackets use educated Bangladeshi youths to communicate with their targets, he said.
"They call the so-called Bangladeshi friends in three to four phases using different numbers -- first as courier agents, customs officials and then as embassy officials. By this time, that person is convinced that an expensive gift is waiting for him," he said.
They do not even stop to think why would someone send them a gift worth a million dollars, that too in such a way over social media, he added.
While demanding the courier charge or customs duty, the scammers tell people that they do not do cash transaction and they have to pay the fees through a bank account, said investigators.
According to a first information report of Pallabi Police Station, filed on July 22 against 12 Nigerians and one Bangladeshi arrested for duping people on Facebook, the syndicates used an agent banking account and account of a trading company to collect the money.
Rezaul said they are looking into the matter as to how they were able to continue duping people through these accounts.
Meanwhile, people should remain alert and inform law enforcers if they receive such strange offers online, said the CID official.
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