Rab arrested two suspected fraudsters who swindled about 500 government officials out of large sums of money masquerading as anti-corruption officials about to sue them.

Anisur Rahman alias Babul, 36, and Yasin Talukdar, 23, were arrested in the capital's Hazaribagh area on Friday. Officers seized 21 mobile phones and 26 SIM cards with mobile banking accounts from their possessions.

Mohiuddin Faruki, company commander of RAB-2, told a press conference at Rab Media Centre yesterday that the suspects used to target “corrupt” government officials and call them over the phone claiming to be the ACC chairman or other officials.

Rab started the investigation after the ACC wrote to the RAB director general on January 27 regarding the matter.

“After threatening the officials with corruption cases, they took about Tk 35-40 lakh from almost 500 government officials in the last five years,” he said.

“They became more active after the recent countrywide ACC crackdown on graft,” Faruki said, adding that the suspects collected the officials' numbers from government telephone directories.

They used to target officials in Chattogram, Cox's Bazar, Barguna and different other districts and collected the money through mobile banking, the Rab official said.

He added that the suspects managed the SIM cards registered under fake names with the help of corrupt officials.

Rab officers are looking for seven or eight others involved in the racket.