CID arrests man for alleged link to fraudster gang in city

Arrest

Dhaka, Mar 14 - Cyber Police Centre (CPC) of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has arrested an alleged mastermind of a reported fraudster gang from the city's Mirpur area early Thursday on charge of pocketing about Tk 2.31 crore by alluring a man to get a dollar-filled luggage.

Based on secret information, a team of the Cyber Police Centre carried out a raid at Paikpara area of Mirpur early Thursday and arrested Sohail Ahmed Apu,28.

Apu has been residing at a house at, Topten Hawk plaza  of Pikepara in Mirpur.

Sources at the Cyber Police Centre of the CID, a specialised police unit, said one   Reza (40) was introduced to a member of the fraudster gang through Facebook. At one stage, a member of the alleged fraud syndicate introduced himself as an official of Florida City Bank and said that a client of the Bank had a deposit of 6 million dollars. The client died in Haiti on 12 January in 2010 and he has no heirs.

The fraudster then allured Suman Al Reza to become the bank client's heir and offered to share the deposited money equally between the two after withdrawing the money. Later, the alleged fraudster demanded Tk 9,70,000 from Reza as shipping charges of dollar sent through a courier service. After payment of the amount, the fraudster also demanded $55,000 (Tk. 61,65,000) as federal taxes. Allured by dollar-filled luggage, Sumon Al Reza then deposited the amount as Federal Tax to the Dutch Bangla Bank Mirpur-10 branch, Dhaka, account of Golden Logistics Enterprise.

As Suman Al Reza did not receive the parcel as per the conditions, he realised that he was a victim of fraud and he filed a case with Uttara West Police in December last year in this connection.

After getting charge of the investigation of the case, a team of Cyber Police Centre conducted an operation on the basis of the information collected from the bank account and arrested one Md Akash (23) from Chanpara Rehabilitation Centre of Rupganj police station in Narayanganj District on January 25 this year.

According to the statement of Akash, another member of the fraud gang identified as Ibrahim (30), was arrested on the same day from Kalyanpur Porabasti in Dhaka city.

When the arrested men were sent to jail, Apu's name emerged allegedly as the mastermind of the cheating ring as per their confession. In view of this, he was arrested early Thursday.

According to preliminary investigation, the gang has misappropriated about   Tk 2,30,18,326 from various victims using different  bank  accounts. - UNB