How Arav Khan preyed on migrants in Dubai

After slogging it out in Dubai for 16 years, Aynal Sipat Ali had saved up 131,000 UAE dirham (AED), which is about Tk 44 lakh. But he never got to enjoy the money thanks to Rabiul Islam, better known as Arav Khan.

Aynal is not alone; nine other expatriate Bangladeshis in Dubai were prised out of AED 425,500 (about Tk 1.46 crore) by Rabiul, who is wanted by the Bangladesh government over the murder of Special Branch Inspector Mamun Emran Khan at a Banani flat on July 8, 2018, and another arms case.

As of now, it appears the 10 Bangladeshis are unlikely to recover the sum given the grey area about his nationality: he fled to India after a case was filed against him over Mamun's murder, assumed the name of Arav Khan and took on Indian citizenship.

At present, Rabiul, who hails from Gopalganj, lives in Dubai under his assumed identity of Arav Khan and as an Indian citizen.

Although he was arrested by Interpol in Dubai for 37 days, the Bangladesh government could not repatriate him due to his being an Indian citizen.

On November 18 last year, the 10 victims lodged a complaint with the Bangladesh consulate in Dubai and sought the mission's intervention to get back their money.

"Since Arav is now an Indian citizen, we advised the affected people to apply to the consulate general of India in Dubai for justice," BM Jamal Hossain, the counsel general of Bangladesh in Dubai, told The Daily Star over the phone on December 21 last year.

According to the complaints, Arav embezzled AED 178,000 from Tariqul Islam, AED 131,000 from Aynal Sipat Ali, AED 37,500 from Yousuf Ali, AED 31,500 from Mohammad Rafsan Jani, AED 25,000 from Hasan Khan, AED 10,000 from Istiaque Ahmed, AED 12,500 from Md Shabbir and AED 5,000 from Sarwar Ahmed.

Four of the victims told the correspondent that they lodged a complaint with the consulate general office of India in Dubai but to no avail.

K Kalimuthu, the consul general of India in Dubai, and Arav did not respond to The Daily Star's request for comment.

The victims said Arav is continuing to defraud people by offering fake visas to different European and North American countries through his travel agency Arav Khan Travels.

"He [Arav] ruined my life -- now I don't have any money for my wife's treatment," said Aynal, who is in his late 50s and is making ends meet by working as a watchman in Chattogram's Satkania.

After the sudden death of his son in July 2022, Aynal decided to move back to Bangladesh for good.

That was when he was approached by Arav, who offered to send his savings back to Bangladesh.

"He [Arav] addressed me as baba (father) -- I was amazed by his behaviour. He told me that 'you are mentally devastated, give me the money, I will send it to your family," he added.

For Tariqul Islam, a software engineer in Dubai, Arav's approach was different.

In December 2022, he requested Tariqul to deposit AED 178,000 to his account for five minutes so that he could show the requisite account balance to sign the lease agreement for Arav Jewellers.

"Being a Bangladeshi, I helped him and deposited the amount in December last year. But the five minutes never came," Tariqul told The Daily Star.

It was the opening of this jewellery store three months after he took the sum from Tariqul that catapulted him to the public eye.

He managed to get cricketer Shakib Al Hasan and other celebrities to attend the launch event.

It is under the garb of Arav Jewellers that he swindled Yousuf Ali and six others.

Convinced by Arav's pitch that he would "make a fortune", Yousuf invested AED 37,500 in Arav Jewellers.

Yousuf never got any stake in Arav Jewellers.

Mohammad Hosain Faisal though fell prey to Arav's machinations in a different manner. He originally gave Arav AED 12.7 lakh by way of four cheques for 50 percent stakes in Arav Jewellers.

"But soon I realised my mistake and returned the share to Arav through a local court."

Faisal asked Arav to return the cheques, but Arav dragged his feet.

"He threatened to kill me."

Subsequently, Faisal filed a case against Arav with Naif police station in Dubai and moved out funds from the account from which he had issued the cheques to Arav.

He presented the cheques, which bounced. Arav then filed a cheque bounce case against Faisal.

Faisal has filed another cheque fraud case against Arav and both the cases are under investigation.

Aynal though has not been able to file any case. What is worse is Arav is threatening to kill and also implicate Aynal's family members over possession of yaba if he continued to pursue legal channels to get his money back.