The police have arrested two men on charges of embezzling large amounts of money by providing fake Australian visas to unsuspecting Bangladeshis.
The arrestees, Saimun Islam and Ashfaquzzaman Khandaker, both 26 years old, are linked to a larger group, said Imam Hossain, an additional deputy inspector general of police at Criminal Investigation Department, reports bdnews24.com.
They were nabbed from Banasree and Shahjahanpur in Dhaka on Saturday, Imam said on Sunday.
“The accused have been stealing hundreds of thousands of takas from ordinary people willing to go to Australia by supplying them with fake visas,” he said.
CID made the arrests in connection to a case filed with Khilgaon police in July by an alleged victim, Supreme Court lawyer Khairul Islam.
In an initial interrogation, the arrestees said the ringleader, Umme Fatema Rozy, 35, is a Bangladeshi expatriate living in Australia, according to the police.
Rozy falsely introduced herself as the consular general of Australian Immigration when she was in Bangladesh and offered Khairul to migrate to Australia, the police said.
Khairul took up the offer and transferred Tk 5.53 million to bank accounts of Rozy, who had promised him papers for eight members of his family.
Imam said the group of fraudsters resorted to fake identities as representatives of VFS Global, a visa processing company employed by the Australian High Commission in Bangladesh, and forged all visa-related documents, including the logo of the embassy. Rozy sent the papers to Khairul via e-mail.
When Khairul went to VFS Global Bangladesh Pvt Ltd’s office to submit these documents, they said all the papers were fake.