Bangladesh police have detained 63 foreign nationals from an eight-storey building in Chattogram while investigating suspected online fraud, advance-payment scams and honey-trap operations linked to local and foreign networks.
The September 10 raid targeted a building in the Krishnachura Residential Area of Khulshi. Chattogram Metropolitan Police said the detainees include 34 nationals of Laos, 21 from Pakistan, five from China, and one each from Nepal and Vietnam.
Police recovered 134 mobile phones and 57 laptops during the operation. Three Pakistani identity cards and a Cambodian employment card were also found, but officers said none of the detainees had passports in their possession.
Cases have now been registered under Bangladesh’s Cyber Security Act. Investigators are carrying out forensic examinations of the seized devices to determine exactly what activity was being conducted from the premises.
Proposal for Conducting Cyber Crisis Drill, Tabletop Exercise (TTEx) & CCMP Readiness Exercise
Entire eight-storey building allegedly used by foreign group
Police said the foreign nationals had rented the entire building and were living in separate sections based on nationality.
The property had reportedly been rented around six months earlier for Tk 4 lakh to Tk 5 lakh a month. Officers are now searching for a man identified as Mohsin, who is suspected of managing the operation and allegedly holding many of the detainees’ passports.
Investigators have not yet established the precise role played by each person detained.
A Chattogram counter-terrorism official told The Daily Star that preliminary findings indicated possible online marketing fraud, advance-payment schemes and honey-trap-style activity. Police believe the group may have connections with both Bangladeshi and foreign networks.
Advance-payment fraud generally involves convincing a victim to pay money first for a product, investment, service or supposed opportunity that never materialises.
A honey trap uses a fake romantic or personal relationship to gain a victim’s confidence before extracting money, sensitive information or compromising material.
Were everyone inside the building actually scammers?
That remains one of the most important unanswered questions.
Police said some detainees may have been brought to Bangladesh after being offered jobs abroad and were working for fixed salaries. Many reportedly could not speak or understand English, complicating questioning.
An investigating officer said the absence of passports could indicate that some people had been prevented from freely leaving the premises or returning home.
That raises a disturbing possibility familiar from cyber-fraud compounds elsewhere in Asia: some people operating scam accounts may themselves have been trafficked, deceived or placed under coercive control.
Police have not yet established that this happened in Chattogram, and the theory remains under investigation.
Forensic analysis will therefore be crucial. Investigators need to establish which devices were used by which individuals, what online accounts were operated, where victims were located and who controlled the money.
The police seizure list may complicate that work because The Daily Star reported that it did not specify which seized device belonged to each detainee.
Cox’s Bazar raid uncovered nearly 2,000 iPhones days earlier
The Chattogram raid comes only a week after another major operation involving foreign nationals in Bangladesh.
On September 3, police arrested five Chinese nationals and one Taiwanese national from hotels in Cox’s Bazar over alleged online gambling and fraud. Officers recovered 1,938 iPhones and dozens of laptops.
Police later said around 250 to 300 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals suspected of belonging to the wider network had scattered after learning about enforcement action. Investigators said parts of the group had been operating from hotels and resorts along Marine Drive for several months.
Bangladesh had already encountered similar foreign-linked cybercrime networks earlier this year.
In May, detectives in Dhaka arrested six Chinese nationals and others in a case involving alleged online gambling, cyber fraud and money laundering. Police said the suspects used Facebook, YouTube and Telegram advertisements to lure victims with promises of unusually high returns before collecting money through services such as bKash and Nagad.
The repeated raids are now forcing Bangladeshi investigators to examine whether these operations are isolated or parts of a broader regional cyber-fraud ecosystem shifting into the country.
The Chattogram investigation could provide an important answer once police complete device forensics, trace financial transactions and establish who recruited and controlled the foreign nationals.
What this means for you: Be especially cautious of unfamiliar online sellers, investment offers or romantic contacts demanding advance payments. Cross-border fraud networks can operate hundreds of fake identities at once, making an apparently genuine social-media profile or conversation poor evidence that the person behind it is real.
The420 Insight: The most important clue may not be the number of laptops seized, but the missing passports. If investigators establish that some workers were recruited deceptively and then controlled by organisers, the case could point towards the same fraud-compound model seen elsewhere in Asia, where cybercrime and human exploitation exist inside the same operation.
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