Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested an official of the private telecom company Grameenphone, and the head of an affiliated distribution company, for allegedly selling SIM cards registered in the name of corporate clients to criminals.
The arrested are Syed Tanvirur Rahman, 35, Grameenphone senior executive (Business Sales) and Toufiq Hossain Khan Palash, 38, head of Monadic Bangladesh Distribution.
They were arrested from separate areas of Dhaka on Saturday night. RAB also recovered 553 illegal SIM cards, one laptop, and nine tablet PCs during the raid.
RAB 4 Commanding Officer (CO) Chowdhury Manjurur Kabir confirmed the incident during a press briefing at the RAB media center in, Karwan Bazar area, on Sunday afternoon.
The CO said, the two have been issuing more SIM cards than demanded by different companies — they give the company the actual amount of SIM cards ordered, and sell the rest, illegally, to different distributors for a high price.
Around 867 SIM cards have been illegally issued in the name of 42 different companies. These SIM cards have been bought by criminals for extortion and illegal businesses, he added.
After RAB interrogated the two, the CO said: “Towfiq has been illegally selling the SIM cards while Grameenphone employee Tanvirur activated them.
Manjurur Kabir said: “A foreign citizen filed a general diary in the Bhasantek police station on September 19 after receiving a death threat over phone from an unknown person, asking for Tk10 crore of extortion money.”
RAB has been investigating on the basis of the GD. Later, they detained Tanvirur and Towfiq.
“Both arrestees denied their involvement but later admitted it and prayed for forgiveness,” said Manjurur. Later, they were arrested, he added.
The RAB 4 CO said they are looking into the involvement of other employees of Grameenphone, and other companies like Banglalink and Robi.
