Police detain three bKash agents for circulating money of syndicate involved in HSC question paper leak

Police have detained three agents of bKash, a popular mobile banking service, for transacting money on behalf of a syndicate involved in HSC question paper leak.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam said ‘Kalam’, ‘Faruk’ and ‘Hira’ were picked up from Demra in the early hours of Tuesday. 

On July 15, police picked up six persons, including Raihan Chowdhury alias ‘Dan Brown’, from the same area in connection with the question paper leak. 

The police official added they picked up the trio based on information provided by Chowdhury.

“Although they are originally bKash agents, they had opened a lot of fake accounts using which those involved in question paper leak circulated funds,” Islam said at a press briefing.

“We have information that around Tk 2 to Tk 2.5 million collected by selling questions was circulated through those accounts.”

Based on information they gleaned from Chowdhury, police picked up three teachers of Golam Mostofa Model College from the same area on Monday for their suspected link to the syndicate.

Police said the college’s Principal Shamim Shikder was the ring leader of the syndicate and used to provide the question papers to the students two hours before each exam.

They are looking for him.

Islam further said mobile banking platforms are popular with criminals to carry out financial transactions and the law enforcers met the service providers a number of times to tell them about the trend.

“Detectives are investigating which organisations are being used to dupe customers and the level of supervision bankers maintain to prevent frauds.”