Detectives conducted simultaneous drives in the capital’s Tejgaon area and Jhalakathi district on Tuesday and arrested three ‘fraudsters’ on charge of embezzling money in the name of conducting Covid-19 test.
The arrested are — TKS group Chairman Abul Hasan Tushar, Managing Director Abdullah Alamin, and Marketing Manager Mohammad Shahin Mia.
Various types of fake documents, including appointment letters, identity cards, visiting cards, and tax certificates, and computers were recovered from their possession.
Briefing reporters at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Wednesday, Joint Commissioner of Detective Branch (North Division) Mohammad Harun Ur Rashid said the fraudsters formed an organisation named TKS Healthcare Service located on the second floor at Al Razi Complex of Shaheed Sayed Nazrul Islam Sarani in Dhaka city.
Then they applied for permission to conduct Covid-19 test to the Health Ministry on July 11.
In their application, they mentioned that a total of 5,126 health workers are ready to conduct free Covid tests in eight divisions, 64 districts, 492 upazilas, and 4,562 unions of Bangladesh, the police official said.
As they knew that they would not get permission from the ministry to set up booths, recruit people and set up camps, they made fake documents for sample collection, recruitment and setting up of camps, he said.
Using the fake documents, the fraudsters embezzled money from people in the name of recruiting various persons as upazila co-coordinators and field officers of Dhaka and Jhalakathi districts, Harun said.
They were trying to embezzle a total of Tk 2 crore in the name of giving dealership of each camp.
He also urged people to remain aware of fraudulence in the name of conducting Covid-19 test.
"If anyone sets up camp in the name of free Covid-19 test, inform police and they will take action."
A case has been filed against the three with Shahbagh police station.
