Daily cybercrime toll mounts nationwide

Syed Shemul Parvez :

Massive activities of various online fraud gangs have been noticed across the country forcing thousands of people falling victims to networked-base crimes particularly cybercrimes every day.
Sources said the rapid growth of technology has allowed everyone access to an unprecedented world of knowledge, but it has also smoothen the way for a rise in network-based crimes, or cybercrimes, many of which are centered around the internet.

Government advisors, important personalities, leaders of various political parties, officers of law enforcement agencies are also becoming victims of cybercrime.

Due to absence of proper laws and stern initiatives, the gangs are becoming reckless day by day.
The sources said the fraud gangs lure people by offering lucrative offers like scholarship for school students or big discount over online purchase. When anyone fell into their trap, they would ask the target to deposit a payment in a big discount promising better products. However, after some time they would stop communicating with the targets.

One victim Md Jahangir Masud, an advertisement manager of a English daily in the capital recently filed a general dairy with the Motijheel police station that a fraud named professor Zubayer called him over mobile phone notifying that his son has got Tk 15000 scholarship from the Dhaka Education Board. To receive this fund, you have to give a AB bank account.

According to the GD statement, Masud managed a AB bank account from his friend and provided it to the so called fraud professor Zubayer.

To confirm the scholarship, fraud Zubayer again asked the victim to know the pin number which was given to victim’s mobile number. When pin number was given, victim noticed that TK 80,000 was debited from AB bank account suddenly.

Another victim Wahida Akther Shikha , a school teacher of the capital, told The New Nation that a online advertisement of Furniture Bazar offered her a vast discount sale marking the Eid special. Believing the offer when she paid Tk 8000 to the furniture Bazar through Bikash, she didn’t get furniture even after passing couple of weeks.

Later, victim filed a general dairy (GD) with the Hatirzil police station on June 6.
Victim Wahida stated that we are from low middle class family. We are not capable of purchasing the new intact furniture. That’s why we choose this way to collect furniture. But finally we fell into the trap of a fraud gang, she added.

A research report by the non-governmental organization Cyber ??Crime Awareness Foundation says that 52 percent of the complaints of cybercrime victims come from women. The most affected are girls aged 18 to 30, which is about 74 percent.

In Bangladesh, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram have become increasingly instrumental in facilitating criminal activities, ranging from identity theft to online gambling and blackmailing.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has now become a major tool in cybercrime. Earlier, people’s images were distorted using Photoshop. Now, disinformation and rumors are being spread on social media by creating perfect distorted images and videos with AI.

Law enforcement officials say that due to various limitations, controlling cybercrime has been a big challenge in the country in the past few years. This challenge has increased several times due to the use of AI in cybercrime. Along with this, cybercriminal gangs are taking advantage of the lack of a timely, effective and controversy-free cyber security law.

Officials also said that the Cyber ​​Security Act was last made in 2023 to control cybercrime. But the interim government repealed the law in principle in November last year. Since then, the police are no longer recording cases under this act in cases of cybercrime.

Over this fraud gang, Mohammad Nasirul Islam, Joint commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) told The New Nation that DB police has taken some new steps to curb activities of such fraud gangs recently.

“We are getting many complaints daily over the issue. We are optimistic that a specific team of Detective Branch will deal smartly and massively over online cyber crimes and fraud gangs, DB officials added.

Professor Shariar Afreen, Chairman of Criminology Department, University of Dhaka, told The New Nation that cyber crimes are increasing alarmingly daily due to absence of proper protection management, law and punishment.

Emphasizing the crimes, Professor Afreen stated that an organized gang who are experts in IT and internet are committing these crimes along with various newer skills -technique using artificial intelligence. Surprising matter is that most of the educated and aware people are being cheated by this fraud gang daily. So think about the illiterate and unconscious people of the society who are mainly targeted by the gang.

Besides, in Bangladesh criminals are more skilled than police that is one of the major drawbacks to control these crimes, she said.

Mass awareness is needed to control such crimes in the society. But truly speaking there is no such big awareness campaigning marking cyber crimes issues, Professor Afreen added.