Amazon's name used in China to cheat in Bangladesh
DB police say at least Tk 1 billion has been laundered to China from Bangladesh in three months. Four people including two China citizens have been arrested in this connection
Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police has identified a gang that was deceiving people, publishing such advertisements for a long time and opening a website that resembles the US online platform Amazon.
The DB officials said the advertisement read, “Earn Tk 18,000 per month by working online for only 20 minutes a day.”
The gang would extract money by trapping people who used to search for part-time work online, the officials added.
The head of the criminal gang is Deng, a China citizen. He was deceiving the people of Bangladesh from China.
Members of the gang have laundered about Tk 1 billion to China through informal channels, the law enforcement claimed.
Sources said Deng formed the gang with two Chinese and two Bangladeshis. To avoid the scanner of law enforcement in Dhaka, four members of the gang rented a house in Satkania, Chattogram. They were making money deceiving people through mobile banking services.
Several hundreds of people have lost a huge amount of money falling in the trap of attractive advertisements on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Telegram and other social media platforms.
Mohammad Abul Kalam is one of the victims. This former government employee invested there about Tk 400,000 after seeing their advertisements.
DB conducted a raid in Satkania of Chattogram and arrested the four as Abul Kalam filed a lawsuit with Ramna police station.
Speaking to Prothom Alo DB’s cyber and special crimes (south) deputy commissioner Mohammad Iqbal Hossain said they have received 8-10 complaints regarding the clique in the last one and a half months. The gang members took from Tk 500,000 to 1.5 million from each of the complainants.
The DB officials, who are investigating the case, said they seized around 3,000 SIM cards from their possession. The SIM cards were used to register mobile banking services for the purpose of dealings.
Investigations revealed that within half an hour of colleting money through fraudulence those (money) were shifted from the SIM cards used for the purpose. Later, the money was laundered to China though hundi.
Quoting the arrested gang members and analysis of information found in the the SIM cards, the officials further said the clique laundered about Tk 1 billion in the last three months.
The gang bought a domain like amazon and opened websites -- amazonninetynine.com, amazonninetyfives.com and amazons.com. They used to publish tempting advertisements about part-time employment that would earn a lot of money. At the same time they used to offer 'clients' a large sum of profit everyday against investment in cash.
They used to collect different amounts of money from the interested people who looked for jobs and wanted to invest by opening a link given in the advertisement
The frauds would earn the trust of job seekers and investors by returning some money initially.
Later, they would stop communication with those who would invest a large amount of money.
DB said two Chinese citizens came to Bangladesh as representatives of Deng, the head of the gang, and formed a gang with two Bangladeshis -- Abir Hossain and Siam Chowdhury.