He became a millionaire from a coolie with fraudulent money. He has several flats and plots in the capital city. Biplob, the fraudster involved in hundreds of frauds and always used illegal network jammers in his car and with him to avoid arrest.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DB) has arrested 11 people including the mastermind of the gang on the basis of specific evidence.
Biplab Lashkar (34) is the gang leader. Under his leadership, there are nationals of various countries including Nigeria, Angola and Cambodia. They made friends with people of different classes and professions and grabbed hundreds of thousands of taka with the lure of parcels. His associates Sumon Hossain alias Imran (31), Mohsin Hossain alias Shaon (30), Imran Hasan alias Iqbal (30), Nazmul Haque Rony (30), Mosammat Nusrat Jahan (24). Besides, Nigerian citizen Chidi (40), Emmanuel (26), John (31), Angolan citizen Wilson de Consicou (35), Cameroonian Gulgni Papini (32) are members in his gang.
One foreign pistol, two rounds of bullets, one magazine, 28 mobiles, one computer, 491 ATM cards, 26 check books, three wireless pocket routers, one private car, 3.5 lakh fake money, cash 11 lakh 35 thousand taka and 263 SIM card was seized by the DB.
On Monday night, the Web Based Crime Investigation Team of the Cyber and Special Crime (North) Division of the DB conducted raids in various areas including Mirpur of the capital and arrested them.
DB Chief Mohammad Haroon Or Rashid announced this information in a press conference organized at DMP Media Center on Tuesday (September 6) at noon.
He said that the parcel fraudsters sometimes stays in Bangladesh and sometimes from outside the country by making friends on social media to get a trap to send dollars or valuable gifts in the parcel and grab millions of taka. Domestic and foreign fraudsters used various methods to collect Facebook ID, WhatsApp, e-mail of common people and used different identities like US Army, US Navy to establish friendly relations with the targeted persons. At one point, traps were made by sending expensive gifts of gold, precious stones, diamonds, large sums of foreign currency, dollars/Euros etc.
Fraudsters used to send pictures of fake parcels mentioning the name and address of the person. The defrauded persons waited to receive the parcel in good faith. Bangladeshi fraudsters working in the calling department of fraudsters used the numbers of different operators and pretended to be customs officers to report that the parcel had arrived. He said that he would have to pay a hefty sum of money for the customs house fee to release the parcel.
The victims used to send the money demanded by the fake customs official hoping to get the parcel. Then the person who identified himself as the customs officer would call again to inform that the parcel sent by the foreign friend contained a large amount of illegal dollars, which required more money to be released. If they failed to pay this money, they would falsely fear that a case would be filed under the Money Laundering Act and other laws in the name of the defrauded person.
When the defrauded people sent the claimed money to different bank accounts given by the fraudsters for fear of prosecution, by telling that the police and journalists have got the news and to manage them they demanded a bigger amount of money.
As soon as the money claimed by the fraudsters is credited to the bank account provided by them, the victim was blocked from all social media.
Mohammad Haroon or Rashid said, the arrested Biplab Lashkar turned coolie into a millionaire. He has several flats and plots in the capital. Concrete evidence of Biplab Lashkar’s involvement in more than 100 cases of cheating foreigners has been found. He used a network jammer in and with his car at all times to avoid arrest. Due to this, he could not be arrested for a long time.
He also said that the foreign fraudsters had been cheating like this for a long time with the help of many Bangladeshis like the arrested Nusrat. The bank accounts used in the fraud by the gang forged the passports of various individuals and took hundreds of accounts and credit cards in various banks. All these bank checks and ATM cards were used to withdraw the money earned through fraud.
And Biplab Lashkar used to collect and distribute this money. He directly monitored through WhatsApp using foreign numbers. Sumon Hossain alias Imran, Mohsin Hossain alias Shaon and Imran Hasan Iqbal worked as Lashkar associates.
There are cases of money laundering in Mohammadpur, Khilkhet and Kafrul police stations against the arrested Biplob. Besides, there are hundreds of cases against him in various police stations of the country, including a case under the Digital Security Act at Banani police station. This DB official also said that he has been arrested multiple times in these cases.
