5 including 4 Nigerians arrested for committing fraud in Dhaka

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested four Nigerian citizens and a Bangladeshi woman for allegedly swindling people out of money over social media.

They were arrested from Kafrul and Pallabi in Dhaka on Thursday night. 

The arrested are Onuorah nnamdi Frank, 32, Udeze Obinna Ruben, 41, Macduhu Kelvin, 41, Frank Jacob, 35, and Tumpa Akhter, 23, who would introduce herself as a customs officer.

RAB seized two expired passports, bank deposit books, cheque books, 12 mobile phones, a private jeep, and more than Tk3 Lakh in cash from the detainees. Copies of screenshots of their conversations on social media – Facebook, WhatsApp, and Emo – were also seized.

RAB-4 Operations Officer ASP Ziaur Rahman Chowdhury confirmed the matter on Friday.

He said the arrested Nigerians have been living in Dhaka for a long time. They  introduced themselves as US citizens on social media to scam people and would build a friendly relationship with people on social media. After a while they would tempt their victims with expensive gifts for them from the US. 

A few days later, Tumpa claiming to be a customs officer would call the victims to say there is a gift parcel for them and ask the victims to pay necessary customs VAT and duty to get the parcel, the RAB official said.

Ziaur Rahman added that the victims would send money to different banks after talking to their foreign fraudster friends about the situation who would assure their victims repeatedly that they would get very expensive gifts.

The RAB official said they will continue trying to arrest the other accomplices of the ring.