Cheating in recruitment tests with spy gadgets

With a tiny wireless earphone inserted in his ear and an electronic transmitter attached to his arm with an elastic band, Rasel Ali sat for a recruitment test of a state-owned bank at Adarsha High School in Mirpur on Friday, when the detective branch (DB) of police detained him.

Taking him in custody, police conducted multiple drives on Friday and Saturday and arrested six members of a question-leaking gang from Kafrul and Lalbagh areas, said Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan  Police in a press briefing at the DMP media centre yesterday.

The arrestees were allegedly involved in helping candidates of recruitment tests of various government and private jobs cheat in the exam through electronic devices, he added.

Six members of this gang are still on the run, Masudur told the press conference.

DB police also seized 12 such electronic transmitters, 16 micro-earphones, 15 cell phones, 25 SIM cards and four books used for solving question papers of different recruitment tests.

The arrestees are: Rasel Ali (29), Mahmudul Hasan Azad (36), Md Nahid (25), Ruhul Amin (25), Khalekur Rahman Titu (29), Ahmed Zubair Saimon (26), and Md Ibrahim (24).

Among them, Azad -- dubbed the master planner of the racket, has been working a government job after being recommended as a non-cadre officer in the 36th BCS exam,  Masudur said, adding that they were enquiring about the profiles of the other arrestees.

A case was filed under public examinations act and digital security act with Kafrul Police Station on Saturday against the arrestees and six others, he said, adding that drives are on to arrest the other accused.

The arrestees were produced before a Dhaka court with a 10-day remand prayer. The court granted two-day remand for each.

Sources said Azad and Nahid are charge-sheeted accused in a case over a question paper leak incident of Dhaka University on October 20, 2017.

On June 23, the charge-sheet was submitted against 125 people including five masterminds of the gang. Most of them are now on bail.

Of the ringleaders, Ebrahim Molla (35), was also accused in the latest case, as the arrestees named him to be involved with the racket. Ebrahim is on bail in the previous case.

Ebrahim, who came from a modest background owned a six-storey building in Khulna city and a duplex in Narail town. On November 3, a Dhaka court ordered to confiscate the two houses.

The latest arrestees were involved in leaking questions of Janata Bank’s recruitment test on Friday, said Ashrafullah, additional deputy commissioner of DMP’s serious crimes investigation division, who led the drives.

DB sources said Ebrahim took the devices from Nahid and Ruhul, and supplied those to applicants with whom they struck deals. Ruhul and Nahid told police that they got the devices from Azad.

Later, police raided Azad’s house in Kafrul on Saturday and arrested him, and seized a diary where applicants’ names, roll numbers and amount of money were written.

Police arrested Titu and Saimon from a house in Lalbagh.

In primary interrogation, Saimon said he used to solve the question papers of various recruitment tests of government and private jobs and entrance tests of different public universities, said police.

In the last four to five years, the organised gang struck deals with government job aspirants and public university admission seekers in exchange for hefty sums and helped many cheat their way into universities and government offices, investigators said.

Each candidate used to pay the gang between Tk 5 lakh and 15 lakh, they added.

Police said the miscreants used to contact job aspirants through different messaging apps.

After a few minutes into the test, questions were leaked through mobile phone to the gang members outside, where they set up a one-stop problem-solving centre to crack all questions. Then the examinee was told the answers through the device, they added.