Photo : Collected
An official of a private bank living in the Banasree area of the capital received a Facebook friend request from a girl named Muskan Roy. He saw in the profile picture that the girl is very beautiful. The profile contained pictures and short videos of various locations. A few hours after he accepted the friend request, Muskan wrote hi on Messenger. Then he started giving replies.
Muskan asked the banker, who did not wish to be named in this report, at one point whether he likes physical intimacy or not. The conversation escalated as she started talking about various things. The banker became weak towards her at some point. Both had naked chats and video calls on Messenger sometimes. One day, a naked video of him was sent to his WhatsApp. There was also a threat to spread the video through social media and Tk 10 lakh was demanded. The banker requested to not release the video. Later, he settled the matter by paying around Tk 5 lakh.
It is known that friendship and conversation happen on Facebook first, then intimate discussion takes place on video calls. After that, a beautiful woman traps rich and famous people in a series of cheating and extorts money from the victim in various ways by editing the video footage of the intimate conversation. According to the nature of the events, it is much like the “honey trap”. In the past, espionage was done using honey traps or beautiful women. Indian beautiful girls are putting Bangladeshis in honey traps to grab a huge amount of money. Prominent businessmen and government officials have fallen into such traps and lost a lot of money.
According to the Cybercrime Investigation Department of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the Bangladesh Police, about 70 honey trap incidents have been reported to them in the last one year. As many as 30 such incidents took place in April, May and June this year. Each incident occurred from a bordering Indian state. By falling into such traps, the victims lost between Tk 20 lakh and Tk 1.5 crore.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Cybercrime Investigation Department (promoted to the rank of deputy police commissioner) Md Nazmul Islam said, “The CTTC has received at least 20 cases of honey traps in the last three months. Among the victims are the country's top businessmen, government officials, political and media personalities, journalists, and common people. The syndicates operate from the India-Bangladesh border with the help of Bangladeshi nationals. Their number is about 500.”
He said that someone's friend request on Facebook should be accepted with caution and there is no alternative to self-restraint and awareness.
After investigation, it is known that not only that bank official of Banasree but also thousands of people of the country have been victims of honey trap. But the number of victims who complained to the law enforcement agencies is small. Another victim told The Daily Messenger that he lost money in the same way.
According to information from the law enforcement agencies, a network of mainly Indian cybercriminals has set up the traps in Bangladesh. There are about 500 members in this circle, including men and women of that country and agents of Bangladesh. There are about 150 members in India alone. The rest are Bangladeshis and they work as agents of Indians. Fraudsters usually trap rich people, businessmen, VIPs, and people from intelligence agencies in different countries. Basically, they adopt this approach to grab information and money. However, in the case of Bangladesh, Indian young women trap government officials, celebrities, journalists, businessmen, and politicians to get large sums of money and not information.
According to law enforcement officials, government officials are the most likely to fall into this trap. They are all married. They don't want to file a case even if they lose a huge amount of money. They just make a written complaint to the cybercrime department. Many also report verbally to the cybercrime unit officials.
In this regard, an expert officer of DMP's cybercrime department, said after being blackmailed, the victims contacted them personally and asked to resolve the matter. “Some also approach high-profile people and request them to make a call to police on their behalf. They tell us the matter in a safe place like a restaurant or a hotel lobby. However, since they do not want to prosecute, the incidents have to be investigated in strict secrecy.”
It is known that Indian girls are trapping Bangladeshis mainly from Assam, Meghalaya, and Siliguri. They collect contact numbers of VIPs and rich people from various government and private websites and send them friend requests on Facebook. All the girls who trapped Bangladeshi men identified themselves as the only daughter of established businessman, armed forces officers or industrialists in India. First, they sent friend requests on Facebook and started text chatting. They also continue talking on phone or WhatsApp from numbers containing India's +91 code.
Messenger/Fameema
