Modern sex business led by medical students, income hundreds crores takas

  • Staff Correspondent, Barta24.com, Dhaka
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Photo: Barta24

Photo: Barta24

A gang used to target young women of rising age on social media and lure them with advertisements in the name of attractive salary jobs, talent hunting and modeling. They were then blackmailed with private photos and forced into online body trade. The Criminal Investigation Department of Police (CID's Cyber Police Center) has arrested 8 people, including the ringleader, for using them as modern-day sex slaves by trapping hundreds of young women in a very clever way.

The arrested are- the ringleader and medical student. Mehdi Hasan (25) and his main associate cousin Sheikh Zahid bin Sujan (26), Md. Zahid Hasan Kankan (28), Tanveer Ahmed alias Deepta (26), Syed Hasibur Rahman (27), Shadat Al Muiz (29), Sushmita Akhtar alias Poppy (27) and Naina Islam (24).

বিজ্ঞাপন

On Tuesday (June 25) raids were conducted in different areas of Dhaka, Satkhira, Chandpur and Jashore and they were arrested. Meanwhile, 12 mobile phones, 20 SIM cards, 1 laptop used for making pornography and blackmailing young women and ATM cards and check books of various banks were seized from them.

Additional IGP Mohammad Ali Mia gave this information at a press conference organized at the CID headquarters in Malibagh in the capital on Wednesday (June 26) afternoon.

He said that a gang is using social media to open fake Facebook IDs and pages to get freelancing jobs, lucrative jobs, modeling, talent scouting, by taking offensive photos and videos from young women and forcing them into prostitution through black mail. Find CID. The gang mainly targeted young women of rising age who suffered from family breakdown and financial problems. The circle used to call for interviews in the name of job opportunities. After that, he would take offensive pictures by telling them to give them opportunities in various advertisements. Initially, they met the needs and money of young women who were interested in work. Then gradually they forced to do anti-social work.

Main culprit Mehdi Hasan and his cousin Sheikh Zahid bin Sujan formed this circle. They are both medical students. They ensnared young women under the guise of medical treatment and sexually assaulted them as well as creating adult content and forcing them to do various anti-social acts on Telegram, WhatsApp and Messenger. In the last 7 years they have earned around Tk. 100 crores. With this money, they purchased a large amount of land in Jashore, Satkhira, Khulna and Dhaka. They built a luxurious house. Information about depositing huge amounts of money in the bank accounts of their relatives has also been found.

How the cycle worked

In the beginning, the circle used to advertise jobs through Facebook and other social media, sometimes make models, sometimes organize competitions called 'talent hunt'. Telegram groups were opened with those who responded. Then the gang used to take offensive pictures of the girls by developing good relations with them and sending them to foreign buyers. They used to force them to make nude video calls or do gross anti-social acts under the threat of going viral. The circle has thousands of subscribers in its Telegram group. Who used to join those groups with a certain amount. The cycle kept all the video calls secret. The girls were then forced by the gang to force the victims to have sex. This is how the gang turned hundreds of young women into modern sex slaves. After a long investigation, the Cyber Police Center of the CID was able to identify the mastermind of this cycle and his main associates.

Preliminary investigation by CID revealed that the gang has a strong network in the country and abroad. Their hundreds of channels with different names have hundreds of thousands of subscribers. The gang earned around Rs 100 crore by forcing women of various ages into video calls and body trade and selling the secretly recorded videos. They used MFS or Mobile Financial Services for money transactions. In addition, thousands of dollars of their transactions in crypto currencies were also found.

This gang also knows all the tricks to hide themselves from the law and order forces. As a result, despite using hundreds of mobile SIMs, none of them are registered with real National ID. In this case, they took advantage of the ignorance of low income people. Sim card was withdrawn with little money. There were Telegram premium accounts and various paid cloud services for content sharing and subscription. These two cute young medical students have thousands of women in their custody. There is also TikTok, Facebook, Instagram celebrity. About 10 lakh nude pictures and 20 thousand adult videos secretly recorded on mobile phones and laptops of the accused were found.

A case has been registered under the Pornography Act and the Cyber Security Act at the Paltan police station against the arrested gang.