The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police has arrested two members of an organised gang, including its mastermind, for embezzling Tk3,41,000 from a doctor in Jashore by stealing his credit card details.
The arrests were made on Wednesday afternoon during a drive conducted by a team of CID’s Jashore district unit in the Kotwali Police Station area of Dinajpur.
The arrestees have been identified as Shahinur Rahman Shahin, a resident of Uttar Ramnagar, and Sanjay Gupta, from the Bahadurpur Bazar area, both under Dinajpur Kotwali Police Station. Shahinur worked as a supervisor at a mobile operator company, while Sanjay was a brand promoter for the same organisation.
According to the CID, the victim doctor purchased clothes from a showroom on Mujib Road in Jashore town on 21 December 2022 and paid using his credit card. The transaction took about 15 to 20 minutes to complete.
A few days later, on the evening of 31 December, an unidentified person called the doctor from an unfamiliar number, posing as an official of Eastern Bank Limited (EBL). The caller claimed that the credit card had been temporarily suspended and obtained various card-related details under the pretext of reactivating it.
Later that night, Tk3,41,000 was transferred from the doctor’s account to six Mobile Financial Services (MFS) numbers through seven separate transactions.
Following the incident, the victim doctor filed a case with Jashore Kotwali Police Station on 21 March 2023.
During the investigation, the CID gathered information about other members of the gang using technology-based tracking, evidence, and the confessional statements of previously arrested suspects.
The involvement of Shahinur and Sanjay was identified based on the confessional statement of an accused given under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in court, alongside other evidence.
The CID investigation revealed that while working as a supervisor at the mobile operator, Shahinur would collect the fingerprints of various customers multiple times through the brand promoters working under him.
These additional fingerprints were then used to register SIM cards, which were subsequently handed over to him.
Using these registered SIM cards, bKash accounts were opened under different people’s names. These SIMs and bKash accounts were then sent to different parts of the country via courier services to execute various financial frauds, including bKash and credit card scams.
During primary interrogation, Shahinur and Sanjay confessed to their involvement in the crime. Legal proceedings against them are currently underway.
