The picture was changed in the National Identity Card (NID) keeping information intact of the particular person, but fake tin certificates and trade licenses were used at the same time.
The members of the fraud gang used these fake documents to get bank loan and flee away without return.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP) Detective Branch (DB) has arrested five such fraudsters in connection with misappropriated of a large amount of money in the name of loan to buy a flat or land from banks by showing such fake documents.
A team of DB Motijheel Division arrested them from Khilgaon and Rampura areas in the capital on Tuesday.
The arrestees are identified as Al Amin alias Jomil Sharif, 34, Kh M Hasan Imam alias Biddut, 47, Abdullah Al Shahid, 41, Rezaul Islam, 38, and Shah Jahan, 39.
DB’s Additional Commissioner AKM Hafiz Akhtar divulged the information at a press briefing in DMP Media Center on Wednesday.He said, the group used to communicate with the owners to buy and sell flats or plots. At the same time, they used go to banks and applied to the authorities to get loans to buy a flat. The fraudsters would later bring NIDs and photocopies of the flat documents from the real flat owner.
Then the fraudsters used to enter the NID server and changed the photo keeping all the information of the flat owner untouched. Through this practice, one of the fraudsters became the owner of the flat, he added.
If the bank authority checked the website of NID and they would see that everything is correct.
Accordingly, the bank authority used to visit the offices of the fraudsters. Meanwhile, the fraudsters rented offices for 1-2 months. Flat registration was done in the presence of bank officials at that office. Since everything was fine, the bank sanctioned loans. After that, when time come to pay the installment, the fraudsters could not be found in that office, said this official.
He also said that two cases were filed with Paltan and Khilgaon police stations alleging that the gang had embezzled around Tk 1.5 crore from Dhaka Bank. Later, police arrested Biplob on February 28. The other five were later arrested on the basis of the information provided by him.
The official said the gang used to change the NID from the server with the help of some dishonest employees of the Election Commission office involved in making the NID.
The Election Commission has already informed them that 44 such people have been dismissed from the job, he added. Hafiz said Al Amin and Kh M Hasan are the leaders of this group. They used to con their associate sometimes as buyers, sometimes as sellers or landlords and sometimes as flat owners.
Abdullah Al Shaheed worked as a middleman in making fake NIDs. Rezaul Islam and Shahjahan used to make fake trade licenses and tin certificates, he added.
“We have initially received reports of embezzlement from 11 banks and financial institutions,” he said.
