Forgery ring distrubuted over 2,000 fake NIDs, says EC

The Election Commission believes a forgery ring based in Chattogram and Cox's Bazar distributed over 2,000 counterfeit NIDs among poeple in the last year and a half.

After a week-long probe, a panel constituted by the commission found that the fraudsters were carrying out their operations with the aid of a few EC officials, including members of its technical support staff and the data entry operators.

As a result, they were able to get the fake NIDs issued by the authorities without submitting complete registration forms, photographs or finger prints. 

The forgers would produce cards in the mould of the ones issued in 2016 and hand them over to agents in exchange for around Tk 15,000 to Tk 100,000. And at least two 'lost' laptops of the EC were used to perpetrate the fraudulent activities, the probe panel suspects.

The EC's investigation was triggered after a Rohingya woman was caught using a fake NID to procure a Bangladeshi passport in Chattogram. The NID registration wing subsequently blocked the release of 50 cards to suspected members of the Rohingya community.

Meanwhile, police arrested a number of suspects, including a staffer of the election office in Chattogram's Double Mooring. Investigators found new leads based on the information they divulged during interrogation.

"The entire forgery ring will now be busted," the EC's NID wing Director General Brig Gen Saidul Islam told bdnews24.com.

"A few unscrupulous office staffers, project support staff members and data entry operators may have a hand in these criminal operations."

"Therefore, we are looking into officials who are currently working on the NID project as well as those involved in the past but were dismissed for various reasons."

The fraudsters could have registered the fake NIDs during the ongoing process of updating the electoral roll, according to the director general. As a result, the investigators are reviewing the list of names and activities of those involved in the process.

Work on the voter list with photographs in the country began around 2007-2008. More than 100 million citizens have been enrolled in the register over the next decade, with their personal details being stored in the EC's database.

The EC is currently working on gathering data of a further 8 million voters which will continue until Nov 20.

Thousands of people are involved in the process of gathering voter data to its input in the database.

"We are putting pressure on everyone now. Around 2,000 officials, including the 1,453 working in the NID project, the EC secretariat and field-level officers are being monitored," said Saidul.

"We are looking to found out which central and field-level officials are linked with the forgery ring and the nature of their involvement. A list of suspicious former officials is also being made. We will get a complete picture at the end of the probe."