Fraudulence at Automated Teller Machine (ATM) continued to take place despite various measures to prevent the crimes. An organised gang of frauds in association with their international gangsters are engaged in the swindling of both credit and debit cards of different state-run and private banks.
The alleged criminals at home and abroad have taken away Tk 2000 crores from at least 1000 ATM booths of different public and private run banks and financial institutions in the last four years, sources in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Police said.
Talking over the issue, Parvez Mir, 28, a freelancer told Bangladesh Post, “ICT adviser to PM Sajib Wajed Joy recently commented that income volume of ICT sector is going to surpass the RMG sector in near future. The government is also stressing on digitalisation of all the sectors. Almost all the banks have been providing online banking service through ATM and mobile banking. But, if stealing money from ATM booths continues, the competence of digitalisation comes under question.”
He also said, “Bangladesh is at present the second largest outsourcing country in the world. About six to seven lakhs people are engaged in the sector. Continuation of ATM fraudulation brings the possibility of overseas employers getting frustrated. They even might turn their face away.”
According to the banking industry sector, such crime is taking place due to weak monitoring and outdated technology of banking, which could easily be hacked using advanced technology. They say whenever such fraudulence takes place, banks do not want to make it public considering their reputation, and secretly compensate the victims.
Most banks do not follow the directive of Bangladesh Bank to install anti-skimming device in ATM booths. Due to lack of anti-skimming device in the ATM booth, domestic and foreign criminal cycles have seized billions of dollars from various booths of various banks. Last year, a woman has taken Tk 13 lakh from just one bank's ATM booth. Later Police announced a reward of one lakh taka for her arrest. Yet the woman is traceless.
According to Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, the first case of ATM fraud in Bangladesh was detected in 2016. On February 12, that year, Eastern Bank had filed a case with the Banani Model Police Station. Additional Commissioner of DMP Monirul Islam, head of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) of the police investigating the matter, said that on February 21, 2016, a German citizen Pieter Mazurek (50), three bank officials, three city bank officials, Mohsud Mokasud (45), Mozud Mozud (45) and Rafat Ahmed Roney, 42, were arrested.
According to their confessions, the gang is not only active in Bangladesh. They are also active in different countries of the world. In 2016 alone, they took out about $ 16 billion US dollar in Bangladeshi currency from various countries, including Bangladesh. Monirul Islam said, “ATM services are available for almost all banks in the country. The central bank has given written instructions to each bank in its ATM booth for self-management and installation of anti-skimming devices.”
He underscored that, even then most ATM booths do not have anti-skimming devices. This opportunity is exploited by domestic and foreign cycles. They place a fine camera at the card entry point and at the top of the ATM booth monitor. The video in the camera look at the customer's secret PIN number. Then they clone ATM card with that PIN number and withdraw money from other ATM booth.
In addition, on March 10, 2017, eleven people were arrested in connection with international ATM card fraud at the hands of RAB 10. According to CID's Organized Crime Department sources, in April 2018, a man named Shariful Islam was arrested in connection with a money laundering ATM card on a hand-held device by making a clone ATM card. A special international team has been formed to investigate the crimes.
For this, foreigners arrested in Bangladesh for ATM booths and ATM card fraud are being interrogated periodically. The countries whose citizens have been arrested have already been notified by the Foreign Ministry. Members of the international team or the law enforcers of those countries have been given the opportunity to be present when questioned.
