Dhaka, March 13 – The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested the leader of an alleged fraud gang, who used to embezzle money from mobile banking users in the capital Mirpur area. Acting on a tip-off, a team of RAB-3 arrested Sohel Ahmed, 36 hailing from Barishal, from the first floor flat of a five-storey building in Block-C in Mirpur around 1o:30pm on Thursday after conducting a drive there, said Lt Col Rakibul Hasan, commanding officer of Rab-3 at a press briefing at his office in Dhaka.
Rakibul said that Sohel Ahmed used to collect account numbers of mobile banking users from agents and later he cheated the customer through various tricks and collecting money from them.
The RAB team also recovered a huge number of mobile SIM, Multi-SIM Gateway device, modem and a laptop from the flat, the RAB official said.
During primary interrogation, Sohel admitted to RAB that his gang collected the account numbers of mobile banking users, especially those who used to transact large amounts of money, from the agents of different mobile banking service providers.
Responding to a question on how they were cheating, Rakibul Hasan said that if a customer was dealing with a large amount of money, the agent informed the number and information of the customer to them. Then they cloned the mobile banking company’s number and called the customer saying that- I am from the mobile banking office, the money you sent or received has gone to the wrong number.
By using such fake techniques, customers would be asked to dial different codes or they would send different links with the message. If any customer clicked the link or dial the number, they embezzled money by using the passwords, the RAB official quoted Sohel as saying.
Cloning of SIM cards is a system through which fraudsters make calls using a person’s number, according to RAB.
Sohel had been swindling people’s money in such way through mobile banking service since 2017, said Rab’s commanding officer. – Staff Reporter
