ringID owner, his wife among 25 sued over embezzlement

A woman has filed a case against controversial social media platform ringID owners - Shariful Islam, his wife Irin Islam and brother Saiful Islam among 25 on allegation of embezzling huge money.
The plaintiff - Ankhi Begum – lodged the case, mentioning ten names, with Vatara Police Station under Digital Security Act and Multi-Level Marketing Control Act on Thursday.
Other accused are- Salahuddin, Ahsan Habib, Rafiqul Islam, Nazmul Hasan, Abdus Samad, Redwan Rahman, Rahul. They are officials and agents of the platform, which has allegedly collected large sums of money by tempting the youth of generating income online.
According to the case statement, an organised digital fraud gang under the banner of ringID used to collect money through e-transaction, and sold coins and gold coins through unauthorised MLM business. The accused people allegedly allured people of easy earnings by investing money in ringID.
Ankhi Begum, her two brothers and a nephew invested a total of Tk86,000 in phases in 2019. One of her brothers could withdraw a small amount once. But they did not get any benefit or refund from ringID afterwards.
Earlier on 28 September, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) of Bangladesh Bank sought the bank details of the ringID. The BFIU also asked banks to inform if there are any bank accounts belonging to ringID Distribution Limited and ringID BD Limited.
ringID, which follows a typical MLM model but calls itself a "community business", multiplies the number of its members, offering them Tk1,500 to Tk1,700 for adding a new member.
They pay students for viewing and sharing adverts, adding new members to ringID, selling its products and coin transactions.
Lured by hefty earning offers, existing members assemble their family members, friends and acquaintances on ringID platform.
Under the brand promoter of community jobs, ringID now offers two types of memberships – Silver and Gold.
For a Silver category membership, ringID charges Tk12,000 and gives an option to earn Tk250 per day by watching 50+ advertisements. For a gold membership, it takes Tk22,000 and gives an option to earn Tk500 each day by watching 100+ ads.
ringID, a social networking platform designed and developed by Ring Inc. and located in Montreal, Quebec in Canada, was incorporated in 2016.