Investigators have found the link of at least 20 top businessmen and several officials of private banks with the card forgery scam in exchange of shares of the illegal cash.
Several jewellery shops, fashion outlets, merchant houses and hotels have let the forgers use the point of sale (POS) machines at their establishments to use cloned cards.
According to information given by the three bank officials arrested in connection with the scam, the gang of frauds mainly used clones of international credit cards used in Bangladesh by foreigners or expatriates who are not in the country now, said an official of the police’s Detective Branch (DB), seeking anonymity.
For example, the fraud gang would make a transaction at a jewellery shop using a cloned credit card that belongs to someone now living abroad. For the money to go to the shop owner’s account, an official from the shop owner’s bank has to approve the transaction.
So, when the money hits the shop owner’s account, he withdraws the money and gives it to the fraud gang. In return, the gang gives a certain percentage of the money to the shop owner and the bank official who approved the transaction.
In such transactions, at least two international banks are involved – one in which the shop owner has an account and the other is the bank in the foreign country that issued the credit card to the forgery victim. Several days are passed before the owner of the actual card gets notified about the illegal transaction.
Piotr Szczepan Mazurek, who holds a Polish passport and was arrested recently along with the three bank officials, gave this information to DB during interrogation.
The DB official, who is closely involved with the interrogation, also said that Piotr got 50% share of each of these transactions, thus earning a lot of money, with which he led a lavish life in Dhaka. The rent of the Gulshan flat he lived in was said to be Tk2 lakh.
“We have so far been informed of nearly 100 bank officials and at least 20 businessmen who have worked with the gang,” the official said.
Investigators are now contacting the private banks, whose names came up during interrogation, for details of the transactions through the suspected POS machines.
Police’s newly formed Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, who are assisting DB in the investigation, said they would seek help from the Interpol once they have got the details of the persons and organisations involved.
Deputy Inspector General of police and head of the new unit, Monirul Islam, said Piotr and his associates had been doing the crime using POS machines for a long time but the banks had not been able to trace the cash flow because of the dishonest officials linked with the gang.
He also said that every bank facilities account-to-account fund transfer but none of them have any definitive statistics or documents,” Monirul said.