Sagar Biswas :
Police have claimed that they got sufficient important evidences about the involvement of some East European citizens in forgery at different ATM [automated teller machine] booths across the capital city Dhaka.
The frauds had installed ‘skimming devices’ [clone cards] at the booths for dodging the electronic surveillance, the police said.
Additional Commissioner Monirul Islam, who has been appointed head of newly formed Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime [CTTC] unit, on Wednesday said, “We have identified four to five foreigners, probably all are East European citizens, with similar appearances by analyzing the CCTV footage. The face of one suspect is very clear in the footage. We are convinced that the foreigners have link with ATM forgery.”
He was briefing newsmen marking the launching of CTTC unit, a specialized unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police [DMP], which started functioning on Tuesday aiming to combat cyber crimes, terror financing and mobile bank related crimes.
Monirul Islam was promoted Additional Commissioner with the rank of Deputy Inspector General before he was made chief of CTTC. “The suspected foreigners are now under our surveillance. In fact, the investigation is going on centering the suspected foreigners. We are trying to confirm their identities using new technology. We will bring all the suspects under law after our investigation is completed,” he said.
According to the first information report of the case UCB [United Commercial Bank] filed with Banani Police Station, the fraudsters installed the skimming devices at 10:42am on February 7 and withdrew money from people’s accounts on February 11. The frauds took away money of about 21 customers only from UCB.
In fact, the ATM card forgery came in to light after some incidents of fraudulences in the booths of three private commercial banks-Eastern, City and UCB – from February 6 to 12. The news broke out on February 12.
Pointing the issue, the CTTC Chief said, “At present, the DB and Counter Terrorism Unit are jointly investigating the ATM card forgery. They are analyzing CCTV footage and other evidences. If we are able to arrest the fraud, we will investigate whether any bank official is involved with the forgery.”
As per primary estimation, about 1000 customers have suffered good amount of financial loss following ATM booth forgery. In the backdrop, all the private commercial banks stopped providing inter-bank ATM service to the customers. Usually, the banks give inter-banking ATM service to the customers under National Payment System of Bangladesh Bank. That means, the customers can carry out monetary transaction through inter banks.
Official sources said, the number of ATM card users is around 85 lakh and there are 7500 ATM booths across the country.
Meanwhile, elaborating the range and area of CTTC, Monirul Islam said, “Some specialised units of the Detective Branch like bomb disposal unit, newly formed K-9 unit [Dog Squad], Crime Scene Unit, Cyber Crime Unit and SWAT [special weapons and tactics] have been merged with the CTTC.”
“The CTTC unit has been formed initially with 600 members, including one Joint Commissioner, four Deputy Commissioners [DCs], 10 ADCs and 20 ACs, and the rest are from the ranks of inspectors and constables. The Detective and Criminal Intelligence Division, however, will function as usual. The DB will get soon one more division which will deal with serious Crime,” he said.
Under the unit, Monirul Islam said, there are four divisions: Counter Terrorism, Crisis Management, Mobile Financing Crime and Transnational Crime-each under one DC. The CTTC unit will also conduct research after collecting terrorism-related information and also deal with terror financing, including mobile financial services, alongside transnational crimes, human trafficking, smuggling of drugs and illegal firearms and fake currency, Monirul Islam said.
An official of Eastern Bank told the media that they will start paying money back to the customer from Thursday as compensation of their loss.
