Police arrest four Amazon job scammers
TBS published an investigative report titled “Amazon job, invest in New York stocks: Online scammers’ newest trap” on 26 July
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has arrested four scammers, including two Chinese nationals, who allegedly embezzled a large amount of money by deceiving people, impersonating themselves as recruiters for globally renowned companies including the e-commerce giant Amazon.
On 26 July, The Business Standard published an investigative report titled "Amazon job, invest in New York stocks: Online scammers' newest trap".
Police said the gang syphoned off a large amount of money from the victims by luring people of highly-paid jobs at Amazon and asking for investments promising high returns.
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Detective Branch's Cyber and Special Crime Deputy Commissioner Iqbal Hossain told TBS that the racket had syphoned off around Tk100 crore so far.
The scammers used to buy domain addresses similar to world-renowned companies like Amazon. Then they would advertise jobs and investments promising high salaries and huge returns, the police officer said.
The racket used to post advertisements like "Less work more income", and "Part-time remote job, earn thousands at home" to attract people. Initially, they used to return good benefits against a small amount of deposit or investment. The Ponzi scheme model attracted people to invest hefty amounts, he added.
"After people invest a hefty amount, scammers insist they invest more, imposing some conditions. When people refuse to invest more, scammers swindle all the money. The racket smuggled around Tk100 crore to China in this way," he said further.
Iqbal Hossain also said the kingpin of the racket, Dem Shoiming lives in China and two of his associates – Jhang Ping and Jhang Eruoa – operate the activities in Bangladesh.
With the help of his associates in Bangladesh, Dem Shoiming used to boost ads on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Telegram, etc.
DMP Detective Branch Cyber and Special Crime (South) division produced four arrestees before the court on Wednesday. The arrestees are Jhang Ping, Jhang Eruoa, Siam Chowdhury and Abir Hossain.
Police also seized 20 mobile phones, some laptops, 3,000 SIMs subscribed to several mobile financial services, routers and two passports from their possession. However, the police did not clarify when and from where they had been arrested.
