Gang caught for fingerprint theft and selling personal data and SIMs
A gang with technical expertise and experience of working in a SIM company has been identified and caught for storing fingerprints in special rubber, creating special apps and involved in personal data theft and selling SIMs using those personal data at a very high price to miscreants. Using the fingerprints of 800 people without the knowledge of them, they had been selling SIMs for one and a half to two thousand taka. The members of this ring educated between classes 8 to HSC used their technical expertise used to collect and sell personal information and activate SIMs with other people's fingerprints and sell those to criminals for Tk. 2,000. Thus, the members of the gang also created an online shop for buying and selling personal information. For the past few years, they have made millions of taka by doing these activities.
But finally, on September 11, the cyber and special crime department of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested 8 members of this gang from Kurigram and Rangpur, including Dhaka city.
Eight people: Md. Masud (22), Mehdi Hasan (24), Al Amin Mia (26), Arafat Rahman (23), Nur Alam (24), Emon Hossain (25), Sohel Rana (36) and Md. Shakeel (25) were arrested inthis connection. Among them Sohel Rana and Md. Shakeel studied up to class VIII. The rest are HSC pass. By profession, they were employed in various mobile companies
A mobile app used to collect personal information, 800 copies of fingerprints of different people collected by special methods, 110 active SIMs registered using biometric data of different people, 2 computers, 5 mobile phones, 3 finger scanners, a Glue gun GT - 10 machines and various apps used in criminal activities have been recovered from them at the time of arrest, said the investigation officials.
As published in the news, arrested Md. Masud passed HSC and got a job as SR in Banglalink. Being well versed in technology, he used to collect the APIs of various important organizations like Robi, Banglalink and various important apps and provide them to Mehdi Hasan, another associate software developer. With him they created TikTok Pro, a special app known as Digital Pro Service. In addition, Masud used to save the fingerprints and biometric information of people who came to him to buy and replace SIMs for future use in a special technique. By using that fingerprint, he used to activate the SIM in the name of different people and sold each SIM to the criminal gang for one and a half to two thousand taka. Emon Hossain, Sohel Rana and Shakeel, who were working as SRs in Banglalink, assisted in the collection of Masud's fingerprints. Also arrested Nur Alam in exchange for money, Al Amin Mia and Md. Arafat used to buys biometrics from Rahman, collected NID servers and sell those to various people. And Al Amin Mia and Arafat Rahman are two brothers. They used to work in GP customer care in Pirganj. By virtue of working in that institution, they got biometric data of GP numbers and sell those data to various criminal gangs in exchange of money. Similarly, Masud, Emon Hossain, Sohail Rana and Shakeel were working as SRs in MN Traders (Banglalink House). Accused used to collect and store fingerprints with the help of glue-gun on a special rubber-like object in the name of cleaning the hands of people who came for SIM replacement and purchase. Later, with the fingerprints of different people stored in the rubber, they activated the SIM against NID without the knowledge of those people and sold it to various criminals-fraudsters at a high price. 800 fingerprints of different persons were obtained from them.
According to DB, the arrested Mehdi is very proficient in technology. After SSC, he learnt computer processing through online. Mehdi is able to create any apps and software. He has created a special app called TikTok Pro. Through these apps, he used to collect personal information of various people and sell it to various criminals for money.
