Passport keeper of 63 foreigners held in Ctg
Police have arrested a man who allegedly kept the passports of 63 foreign nationals detained in Chattogram on suspicion of involvement in an online fraud network.
Mohammad Mohsin was arrested from the city’s Khulshi area on Saturday, police said. He is a resident of Lakshmipur and works as an official of a company in the Karnaphuli area.
Abdur Rahim, officer-in-charge of Khulshi Police Station, told reporters that Mohsin had links with the 63 foreign nationals and had rented out an eight-storey building to them.
Police are now trying to identify others allegedly involved with Mohsin, the OC said.
He said Mohsin had sent 118 grams of cocaine by courier to a person in Dhaka several days ago, but the consignment was returned. While investigating the cocaine-related information, police came across details concerning the 63 foreign nationals.
Mohsin was sent to jail through a court order on Saturday evening in the cocaine case. Police will also seek to show him arrested in the case filed under the Cyber Security Act over the foreign nationals and seek his remand, the OC said.
The 63 foreign nationals were arrested during a joint raid by the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) and Khulshi police at an eight-storey building in Jalalabad Residential Area on Thursday night.
Among them are 35 citizens of Laos, 21 from Pakistan, five from China, one from Nepal and one from Vietnam.
Police recovered 170 electronic devices, including laptops and mobile phones, from the premises.
A case was filed under the Cyber Security Act with Khulshi Police Station, with police as the complainant. The 63 foreign nationals were sent to jail through a court order on Friday.
According to police, the foreigners had been living in 14 flats in the building for about one and a half months. They had installed servers, computers, laptops and other IT equipment there.
Police suspect that the equipment was being used to operate an online fraud network, allegedly with the assistance of a local group.
Investigators are now looking into the network’s activities and the roles of those who allegedly facilitated the foreigners’ stay and operations in Chattogram.
