Seven held for allegedly sending woman to Italy using another applicant's visa
CID officials recovered three CPUs, an HP laptop, 56 passports belonging to different individuals, 153 seals in the names of various government, private and foreign individuals and organisations, an iron embossing seal, and Tk 2.5 lakh in cash from the office.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police has arrested seven suspected members of an alleged human trafficking syndicate accused of fraudulently sending a woman to Italy using the passport and visa of another applicant.
The arrestees were identified as Belayet Hossain, 40, son of Lokman Hossain, Nazmul Hasan, 19, son of Monir Hossain, Mehedi Hasan, 37, son of Rafiqul Islam, Solaiman Sumon, 32, son of Abdus Sattar, Fazle Rabbi, 27, son of Sirajul Islam of Ramganj upazila in Lakshmipur district, Touhidur Rahman, son of Saiful Molla of Madaripur district, and Kawsar Ahmed, 42, son of Amir Hossain of Mirpur in Dhaka.
Based on intelligence information, a team of the CID's Trafficking in Human Beings (THB) unit conducted a drive yesterday (20 July) in the office of a travel agency in the Gulshan-1 area in the capital and arrested them, Additional Special Superintendent of Police Abu Taleb said.
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During the drive, CID officials recovered three CPUs, an HP laptop, 56 passports belonging to different individuals, 153 seals in the names of various government, private and foreign individuals and organisations, an iron embossing seal, and Tk 2.5 lakh in cash from the office.
The arrest came following a case filed at Gulshan Police Station.
According to the case statement, the victim's husband has been living in Italy for a long time. The woman had been trying to obtain a visa to travel to Italy with her four children.
She submitted the required documents and passport to the Italian Embassy in Dhaka. After her passport expired, the embassy contacted her, asking her to renew it.
When she went to the embassy to collect her passport, she met Nazmul Hasan, one of the accused named in the case.
Nazmul allegedly introduced himself as someone capable of arranging passport renewal and an Italian visa, assuring her that he could renew her passport within 24 hours.
Later, Nazmul took the woman to a travel agency in Gulshan-1 and introduced her to the agency chief, Belayet Hossain, another accused in the case.
The accused entered into a financial agreement with the victim, assuring her that they would arrange an Italian visa for her travel to Italy. Under the agreement, she was required to pay the full amount once the visa had been issued.
According to the case statement, the accused later forced the woman to hand over the agreed payment after taking possession of her passport when she got it back from the embassy with visas.
Hoping to complete the visa process and recover her passport, she transferred Tk 2.5 lakh on April 19 and another Tk 1.9 lakh on May 11 this year, bringing the total amount paid to Tk 4.4 lakh. Her passport was returned the following day.
When the victim later went to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport with her four children to fly to Italy, immigration officials informed her that another unidentified woman had already travelled to Italy on April 24 using the Italian visa attached to her passport.
Realising she had been defrauded, she contacted the CID's Trafficking in Human Beings (THB) unit on the advice of immigration authorities.
Preliminary investigation also found that the alleged kingpin, Belayet, had been involved in sending people to Italy through similar fraudulent methods since 2016 and was linked to around 30 such cases. CID also said Belayet is currently on bail in a similar fraud case filed with Airport Police Station in 2024, which is now under trial.
