MFS fraudsters mostly target aged people

Abdur Rahman, a retired non-government employee, lives as a dependant with his family in the capital’s Mirpur area. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) phoned him a few months ago to interrogate him as someone suspected of committing fraud involving mobile financial services (MFS) transactions.

The fraud involved obtaining Tk 4.48 lakh from a bKash agent in Tangail’s Sakhipur in July last year. CID officials did not find Rahman’s involvement in the crime after interrogation. They had several call records, but Rahman’s voice did not match any of those.

Rahman, who is over 80, said he had bought a subscriber identity module (SIM) card for Tk 60 from a street hawker while going to mosque two years ago. He gave the seller his national identity card (NID).

“Maybe they used my NID to register another SIM card in my name. That SIM card was used for the crime, but I do not use that,” he said.

Police then traced a den of MFS fraud groups at the Dumain village in Faridpur’s Madhukhali upazila. Sharifullah, an investigation officer of the CID’s Serious Crime Wing, said, “We have already detained nine members of the Faridpur-based MFS fraud group that was involved in the crime Rahman was suspected of.”

He said there are at least 30 MFS fraudsters in the village and they trick both MFS agents and aged people.

Police say a local government official in the village backs these criminals, who are led by two people named Zakir Hossain and Kamal Boyati.

Most of the frauds have only completed education up to the eighth grade, but they can fluently converse by posing as call centre agents, police added.

The Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested several MFS frauds in Madhukhali this year and sent them to jail. But they were later released on bail and are committing MFS crimes again.

Md Mashiur Rahman, deputy commissioner of DB, said, “Our team faced obstacles during the Madhukhali operation as the fraud groups are locally organised.”

How fraudsters target old people

Md Kamrul Ahsan, CID’s additional superintendent of police, told The Business Post MFS fraud gangs target people like Rahman and collect their NIDs.

These NIDs are then used to open mobile banking accounts because aged people are not usually suspected of crimes, he said.

“We have found several people who are part of a network of MFS frauds across the country. The charge sheet in the Rahman case will be submitted very soon,” he added.

A task force of the Bangladesh Bank arranged an online meeting last year to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.

CID’s Organised Crime Unit Chief Mohammad Abdullahel Baki told the meeting financial crimes are mostly committed through bKash accounts compared to other MFS operators.

CID’s Serious Crime Wing sources say some bKash field officers illegally register SIM cards using older people's NIDs and then sell those to MFS fraudsters to get an additional Tk 1,000-2,000 per card. Police have arrested several such officers.

A member of an MFS fraud gang usually goes to an agent booth in Dhaka and photographs transaction pages, police say.

He then calls recipient agents, offers them new banners and festoons as part of company promotion, and also asks for the one-time password (OTP) of the account. If an agent provides the OTP, he is trapped.