Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have arrested two men who allegedly posed as members of the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) to con corrupt government officials.
The elite police unit arrested 35-year-old Anisur Rahman alias Babul and 23-year-old Yeasin Talukder on Friday (Feb 1) from the capital’s Hazaribagh.
They also seized 21 cell phones and 26 sim-cards registered under fake identities.
“They used to call corrupt government officials, sometimes as ACC chairman, commissioner or official,” RAB-2 Company Commander Mahiuddin Faruki told the media on Saturday (Feb 2) at the RAB media centre at Kawran Bazar.
He added that Anisur and Yeasin have embezzled close to Tk 4.5 million from over 500 officials through their fraudulent schemes.
“They became more active after the countrywide crackdown on graft,” Faruki said, adding that they used to target government officials and collect their numbers from telephone directories to blackmail them with fabricated graft cases.
The RAB official said that they used to provide the blackmail victims with a fake case number and then extort money from them.
Faruki said that on Jan 27, ACC wrote to the RAB director general regarding the matter and a probe led them to Yeasin and Anisur.
RAB-2 Company Commander Mahiuddin Faruki speaking to the media on Saturday (Feb 2) at the RAB media centre at Kawran Bazar.
According to him, during primary questioning, the two revealed that there are 7-8 more people involved with the operation who are in hiding.
“The suspects also revealed that there are 7-10 more groups who extort money from corrupt government officials,” he said.
They also used to collect the money from Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar, Barguna and different locations across the country through bKash.
Responding to queries about fake sim-cards, he said that many shops register sim cards under fake identities and open bKash accounts for them.
“They used to then dispose of the sim cards after using it a few times.”
He added that the 14 bKash sim cards recovered from Anisur showed records of Tk 800,000 in the last six months.
Meanwhile, Yeasin Talukder is a bKash agent by profession and aided in opening the fake accounts.
Faruki said that they were trying to arrest the rest of the accomplices and that a case was being filed over the matter.
