Chinese fraud gang: 3 Bangladeshi associates held in Dhaka

Detectives have arrested three Bangladeshi associates of a Chinese gang that has been embezzling a huge amount of money through various online scams targeting Bangladeshis.

Through scams including gambling websites in multi-level online marketing schemes, the gang took several crores from people, DB officials said.

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The arrestees are Rakibul Islam Ratul, 24, Asaduzzaman Raju, 29, and Mamun Howlader, 27.

They were arrested from Dhaka's Airport area on Friday, Saifur Rahman Azad, additional deputy commissioner of DB police, told The Daily Star, yesterday.

DB officials said the gang recruited Bangladeshi students studying in China to facilitate their fraudulent activities. These students were then groomed in China to defraud fellow Bangladeshis.

The officials said they came to know about this gang while investigating a similar case filed with Kalabagan Police Station on January 2.

Thirty Indian SIM cards, used for fraudulent activities, were also confiscated from their possession, they added.

"The three students, after returning to Bangladesh from China, opened a gambling site in consultation with the Chinese fraudsters," said Harun Or Rashid, additional commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Though the arrestees operated the gambling site, the masterminds -- Gaga, and Chig Chog -- remained in China.

The fraud gang used to lure people by offering part-time or online jobs. If anyone fell into their trap, they would ask the target to deposit a payment promising a double return. However, after some time they would stop communicating with the targets.

"The initial payment was collected through MFS in Bangladesh. Then the money went to China through Cryptocurrency," said the DB chief.

They used Indian SIMs to to contact with targets, he added.

They applied different techniques -- honeytrap, loan apps, online financing, and multilevel marketing -- to trap people.

Harun urged people not to respond to false advertisement of online jobs. He also urged people not to conduct any financial transactions with unknown persons.