Expatriates IMO ID hacked, Tk 50 lakh plundered

Staff Reporter :
An organised gang has looted about Tk 50 lakh by hacking the IMO ID of expatriates in the last three months.
According to the DB officials, this gang has been targeting expatriates for their activities.
They used to send urgent messages to relatives asking for money after hacking the IMO.
The Detective Branch (DB) of DMP arrested six members including the mastermind of the gang following the complaint of a victim.
DB chief and DMP Joint Commissioner Haron ur Rashed said this to the media on Monday noon.
He said the accused persons have been arrested from different places of the capital in separate drives.
The arrestees have been identified as Abdul Momin, Rabiul Islam Elis Robi, Md, Sahidul Islam, Md. Sabbir, Md. Chan Mia, and Ariful Islam.
During the drives 12 mobile sets and 19 sim cards of different operators were recovered. In a press conference, the Additional Commissioner of DMP said that on October 9, a message was received from the IMO ID of expatriate Kashem, the elder brother of Nurul Islam.
The message was ‘I need money, give me money if I send Bikash number’. The next day around 12 noon another message came on the victim Nurul Islam’s IMO ID – ‘What is the bikash rate today? Tk 25,000 can be sent. Later came some more messages and voice messages.
Based on that message, Nurul Islam sent Tk 65,000 three times to the bkash number given by the hackers.
Later, when Nurul Islam saw his IMO ID blocked from his elder brother’s IMO ID, he informed it to the wife of Abul Kashem that he sent Tk 65,000 to his elder brother.
In response, his elder brother Kashem, a Qatari expatriate, confirmed that his Imo account had been hacked. Nurul Islam talked to his expatriate elder brother and confirmed that his money had been stolen by hackers. Later, according to the information given by Nurul Islam, the detective department arrested the accused with the help of information technology. Replying to a question, the DB chief told the press conference that the attack on former Supreme Court Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik was carried out from the BNP rally. Several people have been arrested in this connection and they are being interrogated, he said.