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DB arrests gang of 'honey-trappers'

They used to lure men with promise of flings

Mohammad Jamil Khan
In a shadow investigation of a car theft, detectives have unearthed a honey-trapping scam, in which a gang used to lure men with promise of a fling, before blackmailing them.
Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police have arrested five members of the gang, who have been carrying out the scheme for the last seven months, according to judicial confessions by three of the arrestees.
The arrestees were identified as Nurjahan Begum, 44; Jakir, 30; Md Manik, 23; Mausm, 22; and Sraboni, 18. All of them except Sraboni are related.
"The arrestees admitted to extorting from six people in the last seven months, after trapping them into love affairs," Sahadat Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of Pallabi Zone of DB, told The Daily Star.
DB sources said a man filed a complaint with Uttara West Police Station on May 1, saying someone took away his private car after doping his driver in Ashulia. While
investigating the case, DB police came across the syndicate, who had trapped the driver to take away the car and Tk 40,000 in cash.
The DB team recovered the private car from the syndicate, said ADC Sahadat.
According to the arrestees' statement and DB officials, Nurjahan, a vegetable seller formed the gang with support of his relative Jakir, a human haulier driver. Manik is Nurjahan's brother-in-law, and Masum is fakir's nephew. They hail from Pirjganj area of Dinajpur.
Sraboni, who hails from Nilphamari, met Jakir while working in a garment factory in Ashulia, and joined the gang, said DB police quoting the arrestees.
Sraboni was abducted in early childhood from her village home and taken to India. Indian law enforcers rescued her and sent to a shelter home there. Sraboni stayed at the shelter home a long time, she told detectives during interrogation. After she came back to Bangladesh, Sraboni first worked as a domestic help in Bogura and then came to Dhaka and started working in a garment factory. While selling vegetables in Uttara area, Nurjahan used to collect phone number of her customers. Jakir also used to collect numbers from different sources like cellphone balance recharge points.
Then they provided the numbers to Sraboni, and she gave missed calls to the targeted numbers. Whoever responded, Sraboni talked to them with the aim of developing a relationship.
Later, Sraboni would take the victim to a temporarily rented house. Other members of the group would barge in, catch the two
during a private moment, take pictures and threaten to disclose their "illicit relation". They would then force the victim to pay at least Tk 40,000-50,000 through mobile transactions, DB claimed, quoting the arrestees.
DB ADC Sahadat said that sometimes the syndicate members pretended to be police officials or journalists to intimidate the victims.
Such incidents went unreported as victims usually avoid filling complaints with police fearing a tarnished reputation, he added. “We are now trying to get details of other victims."