From supershop salesman to card forgery ringleader

The police on Tuesday night arrested the kingpin of a credit card forgery gang in the city's Mirpur area.

The arrestee, Shariful Islam, 33, embezzled millions from the accounts of customers of five private banks -- Brac Bank, City Bank, EBL, UCBL and Bank Asia.

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) special police superintendent Molla Nazrul Islam at a press briefing on Wednesday said, Shariful worked as a salesman at supershop Swapno’s Banani branch and stole the credit card information of the customers using a digital wristwatch when they used their cards to pay the bills.

He then cloned the cards and withdrew money from ATM booths.

The CID started the investigation in the second week of March and tracked down a gang led by Shariful.

Nazrul Islam said, Shariful, son of Yazuddin Biswas of Gangni upazila of Meherpur, learnt the trick to clone the cards from his Russian roommate while studying mining engineering in Russia.

Shariful was convicted in two similar cases of forgery in 2013 and served 18 months in jail.

"He has told police during primary interrogation that another one hundred criminals were doing this kind of forgery in the country," revealed Sharmin Jahan, assistant police superintendent of CID.

"The banks cannot stop them unless they change their security system," Sharmin added.

Police seized a laptop, 1400 cloned ATM cards, digital wristwatch, 14 passports, two mini card reader devices, wig, and eight mobile phones from his possession.