Fraudsters ‘clone’ mobile SIMs of 3 DCs

News Desk :
Criminals have allegedly cloned the official mobile phone SIM cards of the deputy commissioners of Netrokona, Meherpur and Jashore districts in a bid to extort people.
The authorities have filed general diaries over the incident and urged everyone to remain cautious through a Facebook post.
On Monday, some people received phone calls
from numbers the same as the official numbers of those three deputy commissioners, asking for bribes, reports bdnews24.com. An emergency notice was posted on the official Facebook page of the Netrokona district administration on Tuesday.
“A gang of fraudsters have cloned the official and personal mobile phone numbers of the Netrokona deputy commissioner and using those to ask people for money. They are also disseminating false propaganda,” the Facebook page said, warning all against speaking with the scammers.
After cloning the mobile phone numbers, the fraudsters asked one person to send them money through bKash, said Netrokona Deputy Commissioner Kazi Md Abdur Rahman. The police superintendent and the BTRC were immediately informed about the issue, and the cloned SIMs were made inactive.
Netrokona Superintendent of Police Akbar Ali Munshi said the police were working to identify the gang that cloned the SIMs. “We’re trying to find them using the clues from the bKash number they mentioned for transferring the amount.”
The SP said he hoped to identify the gang soon and bring them to justice. He urged everyone to inform the police if any scammer asks them to pay money.
Jashore Deputy Commissioner Tamijul Islam Khan said his phone number had also been ‘cloned’. He requested public representatives, officials and common people to remain alert.
Jashore DC Tamijul Islam Khan is yet to file a general diary, and said no one has been fooled although the criminals called some government officials using the cloned number.