A gang behind fake website of the Department of Shipping arrested

By creating a fake website of the Department of Shipping and creating and uploading fake certificates of the department, a ring has swindled crores of taka in the name of giving jobs on international ships. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police has arrested five members of the gang on this charge. Five members of the scam, including its managing director (MD) Sirajul Azad, were arrested in a raid on the Oriental Global International Maritime Academy in the north of the capital on the basis of specific allegations. The other accused arrested are Manjurul Azad (32), Tariqul Azad (30), IT officer Rashedul Islam (30) and former IT officer Mohammad Sohel Rana (29). Two laptops, two HDD hard disks, two SSD hard disks, a pen drive and six mobile phones were seized from them. CID Additional DIG Kamrul Ahsan said this at a press conference held at the CID office in the capital's Malibagh on Monday (February 28). He told a news conference that the computers used by the accused to create fake websites were found to be installed on various database servers. Where information of more than 120 certificates with COP number has been uploaded at different times. They have sold these 120 COP certificates so far. He said the gang first bought domain-hosting and created a website similar to the Ministry of Shipping. It later announced through this website that various qualification certificates would be issued to sailors interested in working in Merchant Ship. Seeing this notification, the sailors go to them for certification. Later, the gang sells various professional fake certificates to the sailors for 3-7 lakh taka. In this way, they sold fake certificates and swindles crores of taka. The CID official said Sohail Rana, a skilled web developer and designer, was among those arrested. Through him, the gang made fake copies of government documents. Later, they used to sell these fake certificates to the aspiring sailors at high prices.