2 human traffickers held in city

Staff Reporter :
The elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested two fraudsters who stole billions of taka in the name of sending people abroad. They are the ring master Mahbub ul Hasan (50) and his main accomplice Mahmud Karim (36).
 A team of RAB-3 arrested these two members of the gang from Shantinagar in the capital on Thursday night. A large number of passports, fake visas and fake documents were seized from them.
RAB-3 Commanding Officer Lt Col Arif Mohiuddin Ahmed told it in press briefing at RAB media centre on Friday.
According to RAB, the gang extorts money from innocent and unemployed youths through fraud by giving false lure of high-paying jobs in various countries including Europe and Middle East.
Mohiuddin said the gang had collected
passports of 521 people through their brokers from different parts of Bangladesh in the last two years and took Tk 2-3 lakh to send them to Middle Eastern countries and took Tk 6-7 lakh for Europe.
The gang members used to convince them by showing fake appointment letters and other documents of foreign companies, the official said.
But, in the last two years, Mahbubul has not been able to send anyone abroad and did not even submit passports to any travel agency to start the process, he said.
The arrested were allegedly planning to leave the country with the money.
Though earlier, the gang sent some people abroad promising high-paying jobs there. But instead of getting jobs, they were confined by the gang’s foreign counterparts and tortured for ransom, RAB officials added.