What 63 foreign nationals were doing with various devices in 8-storey building, what police say

Sixty-three foreign nationals had been staying in 14 flats of an eight-storey building in the Jalalabad Residential Area under Khulshi police station in Chattogram city after renting the flats for one and a half months.

Various IT equipment, including servers, computers and laptops, had been installed in the building. Police said they had set up an online fraud network using the equipment. A local gang had assisted them in the operation.

According to police, the passports and visas of the 63 arrested individuals are not with them. The documents are in the possession of members of the local gang. Police are trying to identify and arrest members of the group.

Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operations) of Chattogram Metropolitan Police Faisal Ahmed disclosed the information at a press conference held at the Media Centre of the Dampara Police Lines in the city on Friday afternoon.

Earlier, on Thursday night, 63 foreign nationals were arrested from the building in a joint operation by the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) of the metropolitan police and Khulshi police.

Among them, 35 are from Laos, 21 from Pakistan, five from China, one from Nepal and one from Vietnam. A total of 170 electronic devices, including laptops and mobile phones, were recovered from them.

Police filed a case under the Cyber Security Act with Khulshi police station in connection with the incident.

Khulshi police station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Abdur Rahim said the 63 arrested individuals were sent to jail through court on Friday. Police will seek their remand for questioning and try to obtain information about the entire online fraud network during the interrogation.

Additional Commissioner Mohammad Faisal Ahmmed said extensive operations against online fraudsters were underway in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Preliminary information suggests that they chose Bangladesh because it had become difficult to continue their fraudulent activities there. With the assistance of a local group, they rented the eight-storey building in Khulshi one and a half months ago. The owner of the building lives in Dubai.

Faisal Ahmmed also said various equipment used in online fraud, including servers, computers and laptops, were found in the building’s 14 units. The arrested individuals could not show any evidence that they were involved in any other legitimate work. Their passports and visas were also not found in their possession. They said the documents were in the hands of members of a local group.

He said police were collecting information from the Special Branch (SB) to determine how the arrested individuals entered Bangladesh and what type of visas they had.

Asked what kind of fraud was being carried out, Faisal Ahmed said preliminary information suggested that money was allegedly taken from people by sometimes creating websites themselves and at other times offering various job opportunities. Investigators are also looking into whether money was taken by hacking transaction information of banks and various individuals and organisations.

However, it is not yet clear who was involved in the fraud and how, or how much money was allegedly taken. Police said detailed information would be available after forensic examination of the devices recovered from the arrested individuals.

The CMP official said the 63 arrested individuals were initially believed to be field-level members of the network. Efforts were underway to identify and arrest the masterminds of the network.

Earlier, on the night of 3 September, police arrested six foreign nationals from a hotel in Cox’s Bazar city on allegations of involvement in online-based fraud. Five of them were Chinese nationals and one was a Taiwanese national. A total of 1,938 iPhones, 40 laptops and various communication devices were recovered from them.

According to police, the hotel was raided based on information provided by Dhaka police following a complaint filed with Ramu police station. Later, a case was filed against the six under the Cyber Security Act. A court ordered them to be sent to jail.

Police had also said several hundred Chinese and Taiwanese nationals were staying at two hotels on Cox’s Bazar’s Marine Drive. They were accused of carrying out online fraud. However, no detailed information was provided at the time about what the large number of iPhones were being used for or how they were connected to the online fraud.

Asked whether there was any connection between the Cox’s Bazar incident and the incident in Khulshi, Additional Commissioner Faisal Ahmed said the matter was being investigated.