Crime buster RAB arrested one Barek Sarker alias Barek Haji in connection with decade-long forgery. He is son of late Habij Sarker, hailing from Shahebchor under Daudkandi Upazila of Cumilla district is the real king of all cheater groups in the country. He went to Saudi Arabia for changing his fortune when he was only eighteen years old.
He failed to find success there. But he learned some extra-ordinary tactics to cheat people from the MiddleEast. After learning cheating techniques, he started leading a cheating gang after giving up all other profession. Within a short time, he became the real king of all cheating syndicates due to his unparalleled skill in cheating. At one stage, he expanded his fraud network across the country.
In his 43 years of uninterrupted cheating, he earned huge amount of money. But surprisingly he was never arrested by any law enforcing agencies though he was cheating for around half a decade cheated around ten thousand persons. But everything has to end one day. Now is the time to bring his cheating kingdom to an end and to save ordinary people from his trap.
The anti-crime elite force Rapid Action Battalion on Saturday night arrested the king of all cheating from city’s Darus Salam area. RAB also seized one foreign made pistol, one magazine and two rounds of bullet from his possession. The crime buster also nabbed his accomplices Habibur Rahman, 24, Zakir Hossain, 58, Akteruzzaman,28 and Shahriyartasim, 19.
When his two sons-- Mehedi Hasan Habib and Al Amin Sarker, along with his nephew Shahadat Hossain were nabbed on March 2 this year, the cunning Barek went on hiding. RAB was hunting him restlessly. After around three months of intelligence work, RAB finally succeeded in arresting him.
According to RAB-4 commanding officer(CO) Chowdhury MonjurulKabir, Barek earned at least 100 crore in last 43 years through cheating.
He bought a large numberof expensive plots, flats, luxurious cars both in the capital and his native district Cumilla.
Barek never was involved in any small cheating. He cheated at least tk 50 lakh, said Chowdhury MonjurulKabir.
Earlier on March 2, after arresting twenty two associates of Barek, RAB-4 boss told Bangladesh Post that in a day-long special drive busted an influential syndicate of international fraud groups from different parts of the city.
Talking to the Bangladesh Post, RAB Legal and Media Wing Director Mufti Mahmood Khan also confirmed it later.
Describing the special operation, he said, "A team of RAB-4 raided at different parts of the capital including Mirpur, Darus Salam, Uttara and Rampura areas.”
RAB arrested twenty two members of the gang and seized huge amount of documents and equipment which were being used for cheating, he added.
The arrested were identified as Imran Hasan, M Azad, MdHomayunKabir, ANM Rafiqul Islam, Al Amin Sarker Raj, Abdul Barek alias AB Bari, Abdul Awal, MdShahadat Hossain, MdMinhajMizi, MdKamruzzaman, MD Habibur Rahman, MdAinalHoque, Sanjit Chandra Shaha, MdShamsulAlamMojumder, Mehedi Hasan Habib, Md Yusuf, MdHiron, MdMamunur Rashid, Masudur Rahman Jalil, Maksudur Rahman Dipu, MdRafiqul Islam and MdMizan.
Some of the arrested are also wanted in different other forgery cases in different police station across the country.
RAB 4 Commanding Officer Chowdhury MonjurulKabir told this correspondentthat there are several rented offices of this group in the capital Dhaka. Since the members of the group have taken forgery as their professions, there is an organizational structure of their cheating business. They are familiar among them as Royal Cheater Development (RCD). They work after dividing into several sub-groups. Each group consists of members in five different levels.
Sub-broker : In the first stage of the group, there are some sub-brokers. They are actually field level employees of the RCD. They identify the potential victims after visiting different parts of the country. They start their works targeting government officials who are going on retirement very soon, businessmen, financially solvent persons, and owners of huge land. Sub brokers pass all data of the targeted person to the brokers.
Brokers : Brokers introducethemselves to the targeted persons to verify the information obtained from the sub-brokers. They give them some highly profitable offers. They also ask the targeted people to communicate with their head office giving them mobile phone numbers of the so-called head office. They also give their own numbers and take necessary steps to bring the targets to the head office of the RCD, said RAB-4 boss.
Manager : After the targeted person comes to the head office, the manager of the RCD, who works in the third level of the fraud syndicate, tries to convince them and give them different offers.
Chairman : Chairman, who works in the fourth level of the RCD, prepares deeds letter with the targets to implement the various offers given by the manager. He also signs the deals with the targets. During the discussion, he makes positive impression about the boss of the RCD. He creates deep impression about the boss in the mind of the targeted persons. Chairman acts like the head of the office of the RCD.
Boss : Boss acts like the very important character of the RCD. He normally introduces himself as a foreigner. He claims himself as the country manager of a leading company of the respective country. He informs that his salary is above 50,000 US dollar per month. When he arrives at the head office of the RCD, other members of the groups propose him to play cards named 'Royal King Play'. Then the boss agrees to play the card game. At one stage, he also offers the target person to play the Royal King Play with him. He embezzles money from the victim by playing the game. There are several methods of forgery of the RCD.
Method-1 : As part of priority method, they target government officials before their retirement. They bring the targeted man to their office giving him an offer to work there as an adviser in the company after his retirement. After his retirement, a specialized team of the RCD communicates with the just retired government official and appoints him as adviser of the company. They bring him to the office in a luxurious car from his residence.
After a few days, he is given the offerto be a shareholder of the company or of its sister concern. Due to the good gesture of the RCD members, the retired government official hands over all the money he had earned from his retirement. Within a few days of receiving the money, suddenly the office is found to be closed and the RCD members disappear.
Method-2 : As a second method, the RCD team traps Tant( hand loom traders) businessmen in the name of giving supply order of around a millions dollar. One member of the cheat group communicates with a hand loom trader and asks him whether he will be able to supply product in large quantity. If the victim businessman agrees, the RCD member tells him to give sample of his products saying that the supply would be exported abroad.
Thus sample product of around Tk. 50 lakh is taken from the businessman. At one stage, boss of the RCD meets the targeted trader. Later, one of the fraud tells him that he can supply the raw materials from the factory at a lower rate for manufacturing the large order of hand loom product. He also prepares a deed. Then he demands some advance payment for supplying raw materials. When the RCD members get the advance from the trapped businessman, the office of the RCD vanishes overnight.
They also switchoff alltheir phone numbers so that the cheated businessman fails to communicate further.
Method-3 : In another form of cheating, RCD traps some house owners in the name of installing internet towers on their land or their under construction building. They send official letter expressing their interest for installing the internet tower. In the letter, the targeted house owner is asked to communicate with their boss giving his phone number. In this case, they use the name of several company including Japan-Bangladesh Internet Tower, Japan-Bangladesh Ship Breakers, Nahar Enterprise, Onnoda Group, AH Electronics and Al Baraka Internet Speed.
They offer the target land owner Tk 40-50 lakh for expanding the building and installing the internet tower. They also offer Tk 40-50 thousand per months for allowing RCD for its internet towers. RCD requests him to come to the RCD head office in the capital to sign a written deal. When the target comes to the luxurious head office of the RCD, boss starts discussion with him. At one stage of the discussion, a foreigner arrives in the room of the boss of the RCD.
Suddenly a staff of the RCD informs the target businessman that he would be able to defeat the foreigner in Royal King Play game. Then he starts the game in front of the victim. The foreigner is repeatedly defeated by RCD staffs. The amount of loss crosses several crore taka. At that stage, the cheat group members also request the target landlord to play the Royal King Play game.
That time, members of the group bring a copy of the Holy Quran wrapped with red color cover and take his promise not to disclose anyone about the Royal King Play game. However, this is not Quran at all. It is actually a normal book or a diary wrapped like Quran. They convince him to play, even if he tells that he does not know how to play the game. In that case, RCD members tell that they can play on behalf of him if he gives them money to play.
After losing, the foreigner tells them that he would give money if they can show their money also. Then the members of the RCD distribute the money among them in front of the target businessman. Thus they convince the target to bring money for playing the Royal King Play game. They also tell him that if he brings only Tk 10-15 lakh, they will earn more than 50-60 lakh from the foreigners by defeating him.
In this way, the targets bring Tk 10-15 lakh forgetting his main deed of installing internet towers. The RCD change the house immediately after getting money from the victim house owner.
Method-4 : RCD members also collect victims in the name of providing free solar panels. They provide a mobile number describing him as their boss. Sometime broker himself also brings the targeted persons to the RCD head office.
Other method : Like the previous methods, they take away huge amount of money from the victim. RCD sometimes traps some other businessmen in the name of giving large scale order of bricks,rods,garment products etc. In the name of signing deals, they bring the targets to the head office. Later, through the Royal King Play game, they take their money.
Senior Assistant Commissioner Mohammad Sajdul Islam Sajol, who is the operation officer of the RAB-4 said, "After filing case, the arrested would be handed over to the police."
