Photo: Collected

DHAKA, May 14, 2026 (BSS) - Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested nine individuals, including six Chinese nationals, in separate drives in Uttara and Turag areas of the capital on charges of involvement in online gambling, cyber fraud and illegal digital financial transactions on Wednesday Afternoon.

The arrested Chinese nationals were identified as MA. JIE, 33, Zhang Jiahao, 22, Liu Jinjie, 32, Wang Shibo, 24, Chang Tiantian, 29, and James Zhu, 43.

The three Bangladeshi nationals are Md. Kawsar Hossain, 24, Md. Abdul Karim, 28, and Rokon Uddin, 40.

According to DB officials, the Financial Crime Investigation Team under the Cyber and Special Crime (South) Division detected advertisements related to online gambling, deposit bonus scams and illegal transactions through bKash and Nagad during routine cyber monitoring on Facebook, YouTube, Telegram groups and various fake websites on Wednesday morning.

Investigators said the fraudsters lured people by promising to double or triple their money within a short time through fake gambling and investment platforms.

Based on the information, DB police conducted a raid in Sector-13 under Uttara West Police Station and arrested Kawsar, Karim and Rokon.

Later, at around 9:10 am, another raid was carried out in the Rupayan Housing Estate area under Turag Police Station, where six Chinese nationals were arrested.

During the drives, police recovered three 64-port GSM/GPRS SIM module (VoIP GSM Gateway) machines, one 8-port GSM/GPRS SIM module machine and one 256-port GSM/GPRS SIM module machine.

Police also seized around 280 SIM cards of different mobile operators, several laptops including Apple MacBook, Lenovo, Asus, HP and Redmi devices, 20 smartphones of various brands, cash worth about Tk 605,000, passports and national identity cards of foreign nationals, and a Toyota microbus.

During preliminary interrogation, the detainees reportedly confessed to being active members of an organised syndicate involved in online gambling, cyber fraud, illegal e-transactions and money laundering.

According to investigators, the group collected mobile financial service (MFS) agent SIM cards registered under different names from various parts of the country and used them through GSM Gateway devices to keep hundreds of SIMs active simultaneously.

The SIMs were allegedly used to process gambling transactions, fraud proceeds and other illegal financial activities. The syndicate also operated its own online gambling portals and laundered crores of taka abroad, particularly to China, police said.

A case was filed against the arrested persons under the Cyber Security Act with Ramna Police Station.