The Special Branch of police has recently initiated work on the preparation of a list of foreigners, including those who are overstaying and are linked to international crime rings.
Almost a thousand foreigners were arrested over the last few years for their involvement in various crimes, even militant activities.
Intelligence agencies have clues that the arrested foreigners from a number of countries- many of whom are overstaying their visas- are allegedly involved in smuggling, drug peddling, forgery and other crimes in Bangladesh.
Monirul Islam, joint-commissioner of the DB, said: “A large number of foreigners carrying out criminal activities are staying at large under the shelter and support of a section of Bangladeshis.”
Ashiqur Rahman, special superintendent of the SB (SS-Passport Department), said they were yet to have any concrete information on the foreigners staying in Bangladesh.
Barkat Ullah, chief of the SB’s Security Control Organisation (SCO of SB), said: “We are a bit worried over the matter and facing difficulties to deal with this type of criminals.
“Many of them are members of different international smuggling and human trafficking rings, and they are supported by a section of Bangladeshis,” he said.
Barkat said: “Many of them have already been arrested, but they keep coming out of the jails somehow and continue committing crimes. Some of them even manage new passports from their countries with different identities.”
When asked, he said under the directives of the home ministry they were working to prepare a list of how many foreigners are staying in Bangladesh both legally and illegally.
Meanwhile, according to Bangladesh Prisons officials, around 800 people from India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Korea, Morocco, Turkey, Nigeria, Guinea, Ghana, Hungary, Mali, Peru, Libya, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo, Cameroon and some other African countries are detained at different Bangladeshi jails for their involvement in various crimes.
Sources in the SB, Detective Branch and immigration authorities, said around 125,000 foreigners are overstaying their visas and almost 12,000 of them came with tourist visas and were possibly engaged in criminal activities.
“A few hundred others, who came either on business visas or under the banners of volunteer organisations, are also involved in militant and other criminal acts. They stay both in hotels and residential apartments,” said an SB official.
He added that “the rest are working in different factories, beauty parlours, restaurants and hotels despite having no work permits.”
Many of the arrests of have taken place at the airport this year, with an Indian and a Peruvian national arrested on April 17 this year at the airport while trying to flee after misappropriating Tk100m from a garment factory in Savar. Then, in June, a Peruvian national was arrested at Dhaka’s airport with cocaine worth Tk30m and a Nigerian national was caught with 2kgs of heroin and US$1,100 in counterfeit US notes. An Indian national was arrested also at the airport in July with Tk35m worth of diamonds.
Also in July, a South African and a Cameroon national were arrested at Gulshan with US$45,800 and €12,000 in fake Euro notes, along with a large haul of equipment used to make fake currencies. Then, on September 4, two nationals of Guinea and a South African were arrested while in possession of a huge quantity of alcoholic beverages in Uttara.
These arrests represent just a few of the many foreigners arrested in recent months for a wide array of offences.
On March 5 of this year eighteen nationals of various African countries were arrested with a haul of fake currencies whilst in the same month four Pakistani nationals were arrested at Bangshal in possession of Rs6.3m.