THE media on Tuesday reported that the Rapid Action Battalion arrested 10, nine foreigners and one of their local agents alongwith huge amount of fake dollar notes, known as ‘black dollar’ and fake currency making materials in the capital on Sunday night. The nine arrestee foreigners are citizens of some African countries — 7 from Cameroon and 2 from Congo. They are allegedly involved in producing fake currencies and cheating Bangladeshis for quite a long time. The Commanding Officer of RAB-2 said in a press briefing that the detained gang used to trap people to sell fake dollars or other hard currencies including local currency. Five of the nine foreigners could not show their passports and the remaining four however, had their passports with visas expired. RAB suspects that the group is connected with an international gang producing fake currencies. Besides, the gang is also believed to be involved in drug trading.Illegal business of selling fake currencies is not new in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi people often become worst sufferers of it. It is believed that fake Bangladeshi currency notes are also produced in home and at times such fake notes come from across the border. Surprisingly, such fake notes are also channelled though the banking window. Many a times before, some people were also arrested on charges of producing fake currencies and processing currency forging materials and machines. But subsequently most of them got bail from court and their whereabouts were not monitored properly. Things become more complicated with the involvement of foreign gangs in this illegal but lofty business. In December in 2015, RAB arrested six people including a Pakistani citizen from Dhaka on charge of making fake foreign currencies having involvement in human trafficking. In November 2014, the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested 31 foreigners of 10 African countries for staying here illegally. Police found that many of them were involved in forged currency business. But they were not handed down appropriate punishment through the court of law.There is reason to believe that these illegal activities are continuing in Bangladesh because of loose monitoring by the law enforcers and the Central Bank. Weak laws or lack of enforcement of existing laws are rather helping growth of such quick profiting business.
