7 of gang that ‘stole crores’ by promising jobs held
As per the plan, the gang first arranged for entrance passes to get into the secretariat.
The members then welcomed at least 20 applicants for a fake recruitment test inside the establishment.
Finally, they gave fake appointment letters with a barcode to selected candidates. For “recruitment”, the gang took around Tk 12 lakh from each candidate through cheques.
This is just one of the episodes of how these criminals defrauded job seekers.
This whole strategy centres around a recruitment advert the Public Works Department published on April 6, 2022 to appoint 449 officials.
Although actual appointments have been completed, the gang has reportedly embezzled crores from at least a hundred people by making them believe that recruitment is still open.
Police’s detective branch (DB) disclosed this information following the arrest of seven gang members from different areas of Dhaka and Rajbari recently.
DB (Lalbagh division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police seized several hundred applications, certificates of hundreds of people, test questions, fake appointment letters, bank cheques, phones, and laptops from their possession.
The arrestees are Alamgir Hossain, Rezaul Hoque Titu, Humayun Kabir, Polash Chandra Sarker, Md Asadul Haque, Jahid Hasan, and Asaduzzaman alias Babu.
Alamgir is the mastermind of the gang. He identified himself as a physics professor of Maj (retd) Abdul Mannan College in Noakhali, said police.
Shahidul Islam, the college’s principal, who has been working there for the last 22 years, told this newspaper that he knows no such person.
Mashiur Rahman, deputy commissioner of DB (Lalbagh) of DMP, told The Daily Star that the arrestees would collect Tk 5 lakh to 12 lakh from each of the hundreds of defrauded people by assuring them of providing jobs in the Public Works Department.
“The gang used to show the advertisement to honours graduates in Kushtia, Chattogram, Noakhali, Faridpur, and Barishal through their associates to convince the job seekers,” he said.
Mashiur said, “The arrestees even used names of noted ruling-party leaders in Noakhali and ministers to assure job seekers that a special written and viva test will be held under a quota system.”
For holding recruitment tests, the gang used to take job seekers to offices of Public Works Department and different government office buildings, he said.
But how did the arrestees collect the secretariat passes?
DC Mashiur said arrestee Humayun had visited the secretariat multiple times. He would enter using names of different politicians from Noakhali.
“During his visits, Humayun managed to establish good connections with some lower-level officials and staffers. He later used the connections to collect the passes,” he said.
“We are checking these officials’ activities to know whether any of them was aware of the gang’s activities,” said the official.
Investigators said at least two fraud cases have been filed against arrestees Humayun and Titu. Previously, CID even arrested them in connection with fraud centring recruitment to state-owned banks. The two were later released on bail after different periods of imprisonment.
DB officials said Titu keeps his family in two luxurious flats, furnished with high-end furniture, in Dhaka.
Meanwhile, Humayun has built a duplex house in Rajbari’s Meghna village with the money he earned by defrauding people and even opened a large electronics store in the locality, said Mashiur.