3 ‘cryptocurrency dealers’ held in Habiganj, Laxmipur

Police claimed to have arrested three youths for their alleged involvement in cryptocurrency dealing from Habiganj and Laxmipur districts.

The arrestees are: Ahsan Habib alias Shah Md Tanim, 22, and Sohel Mia alias Kazi Sohel, 27, of Habiganj; and Maruf Hosain alias Maruf Billah, 25, of Laxmipur.

Dealing in cryptocurrency or virtual currency, such as Bitcoin, is illegal in Bangladesh. However, transactions are still taking place online with these virtual currencies, police said in a press release.

Transactions in this medium are done through cryptography – using secret codes which are difficult to break to extract information.

In Bangladesh, cryptocurrency is mostly used for gambling, especially during IPL and BPL, or hiding illegal wealth form government. Some also are involved in buying Bitcoins and selling them when the price increases. 

Based on investigation, Cyber Monitoring Cell of Bogura police came to know that a gang had been involved in cryptocurrency trade involving Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Skrill, Litecoin, Webmoney, Neteller, Etherium, and Perfect Money, and kept them under surveillance. The group also allegedly extorted money from a number of clients promising to give them Bitcoins, the release read.

A team of Bogura cyber police led by Inspector Md Emran Mahmud conducted a drive in Madhabpur area of Habiganj and Raypur area of Laxmipur on April 23 and April 24 respectively and arrested the three cryptocurrency dealers.

The primary investigation revealed that the dealers had made two websites on December 20, 2017 and January 14, 2018, using which they had been making transactions involving virtual currency, according to the release.

Analysis found that the websites had 7,362 active users and about 27,800 transactions had been made through the websites. The arrestees used to transfer the money received from trading virtual currencies to their bKash and Rocket accounts, which were also recovered by the law enforcers.

The law enforcers recovered the websites and also seized two laptops, 16 mobile phones, and 20 SIMs from the arrestees.

A case under Digital Security Act has been filed against the trio with Bogura Sadar Police Station yesterday.