Tk 3 cr embezzled to send people abroad: 2 traffickers held in city

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) said on Friday they arrested two suspected members of a human trafficking gang, who embezzled around Tk 3 crore from people in the name of sending them abroad, from the city’ Shantinagar area.

The arrestees were identified as Mahbubul Hasan, 50, and Mahmud Karim, 36, reports UNB.

Tipped off, a team of Rab-3 made the arrest after conducting a drive in Shantinagar on Thursday night, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Farzana Haque, staff officer (Media).

During primary interrogation, arrestee Mahbubul confessed that the gang used to fraud poor and unemployed people with promise of high-paying jobs in Europe and Middle Eastern countries by showing fake appointment letters and other documents of foreign companies. They 9 trafficked many others since 2000.

The gang collected 521 passports through brokers in various parts of Bangladesh in the last two years. They also took Tk 2-3 lakh to send each person to the Middle East and Tk 6-7 lakh to Europe, said the officer.

But they failed to send anyone abroad and to submit passports to any travel agency to start the process. They also failed to return the money to the victims.

However, the gang had sent some people abroad earlier alluring with high-paying jobs who were confined by the gang's foreign counterparts and tortured for ransom instead of getting jobs there, said ASP Farzana.

Legal steps are underway against the arrestees, she added.