Looting Tk 3.1cr from freelancer in DB custody: 6 cops suspended

Six members of Detective Branch (DB) (North-South) of Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP) were temporarily suspended last night in connection with looting cryptocurrency worth Tk 3.1 crore from a freelancer in DB custody on February 26.

CMP Commissioner Krishna Pada Roy signed their suspension order based on the findings of a probe committee which was formed to investigate the incident earlier.

CMP's Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC-PR) Spina Rani Pramanik confirmed the incident to The Daily Star today.

"Six DB members were temporarily suspended for their involvement in the crime, and departmental cases will be filed against them in this connection," she added.

The six cops are SI Md Alamgir Hossain, ASI Babul Mia, ASI Shah Paran Jannat, ASI Moinul Hossen, and constables Jahidur Rahman and Abdur Rahman.

However, Inspector Ruhul Amin who led the DB team during the looting incident was served a show cause notice to submit his version.

Victim Abu Bakkar Siddique is a freelancer with a licence from the ICT ministry. A team of CMP's DB North-South Zone led by Ruhul Amin detained Abu Bakkar and his friend in Baizid area on February 26 night and seized their mobile phones.

The DB men threatened to implicate Bakkar in a false cybercrime and money laundering case. Later that night, the DB police picked up Siddique and his friend in a microbus and took them to the DB office in the city's Mansurabad Police Lines.

In custody, the cops forcibly unlocked Bakkar's phone with his fingerprint, logged into his Binance Account and transferred around $2,72,000 (Tk 3 crore approximately) to another account. They also swindled Tk 10 lakh from his Bangladeshi bank account via online apps.

On February 27, Abu Bakkar was placed before the court with a non-FIR prosecution slip under Section 103 of the CMP Metropolitan Ordinance for online gambling.

After getting released, the freelancer detected the crime and reported it. Following the allegation, DB later lodged a case with Baizid Bostami Police Station accusing freelancer Abu Bakkar Siddique and two police informants on March 2 over storing Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, and dollars under Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947.

To investigate the incident, CMP later formed a three-member committee headed by Counter Terrorism Division's ADC Asif Mohiuddin. Later the probe committee found true the allegations against the DB men.