Around 250-300 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals, reportedly part of an online financial fraud network, have gone on the run after six of their cohorts were arrested from two hotels in Cox’s Bazar on Thursday night.
Police said the gang had been operating from hotels and resorts along the Marine Drive for at least four months. Following last month’s raid at one of these hotels and Thursday night’s arrests, the suspects checked out and moved to other locations in Cox’s Bazar and possibly elsewhere in the country.
On Thursday night, police raided Hotel Falcon and Hotel Sea Palace in the town’s Kolatoli area and detained five Chinese and one Taiwanese national.
They were identified as Taiwanese national Wei Ching Wen and Chinese nationals XU Yangfan, Yan Changsheng, XU Hajyang, WU Jianxiong, and Zhang Zheming. Six mobile phones, five passports, and three identity cards were seized from their possession.
The same night, a case was filed against them with Ramu Police Station over allegations of luring victims with false investment offers and using cloned or fake trading platforms to scam users out of money.
Four others -- Zhan Yuan Fan alias Babar Ali, Pai Leding, Wu Zhiping, and Jian Zhang -- were named as absconding.
The case also accuses 250-300 unidentified Chinese and Taiwanese nationals as members of the same network.
On Friday, the six arrestees were sent to jail via a court order.
Ramu Police Station OC AK Fazlul Haque said the group had scattered after the operation. “Some may have moved to different hotels in Cox’s Bazar, others possibly to different parts of Bangladesh,” he said, adding that police efforts to trace them are ongoing.
Ramu Police Inspector Mintu Dutta is the case’s investigating officer.
According to the case statement, around 250-300 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals had been staying at Marina Beach Villa Resort in Himchhari, as well as Dream Holiday Resort and Orchid Blue Resort in the Inani area of Ukhiya.
The foreigners have been arriving in Bangladesh since March 1. They began renting properties in Cox’s Bazar from April.
At Marina Beach Villa Resort, they had set up a computer lab and six soundproof rooms to conduct their online operations.
During a raid at Marina on August 25, the suspects fled through the beach behind the resort. Police later seized 1,938 iPhones, 50 monitors, 44 CPUs, 30 keyboards, two laptops, two printers, 40 mice, an IPS unit, and 24 connection boards. Chinese police badges, a tie with a police logo, and a Chinese flag were also recovered, said the case statement.
A Chinese national named Zhan Yuan Fan, who used the name “Babar Ali”, rented the resorts. Pai Leding signed rental agreements with the resort owners, while Wu Zhiping introduced himself as the owner of Jin Xin Construction Company and told owners he was in the process of setting up a construction company in Bangladesh.
Following the raid, a three-member delegation from the Chinese embassy in Dhaka visited Marina Beach Villa Resort on August 26.
On August 28, a nine-member team led by a deputy inspector general of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit inspected the site.
The CTTC team concluded the group may be involved in various organised online financial crimes and recommended forensic examination of seized evidence.
According to resort staff, the foreigners lived in isolation.
Abu Bakkar Siddiq, manager of Marina Beach Villa Resort, said around 50 foreign nationals rented 45 rooms, brought their own cooks and had their own people buy the groceries. They didn’t allow Bangladeshi staff to enter their rooms.
Resort employee Md Selim said the foreigners arrived around three months ago. “They kept to themselves and did not interact with the public,” he said.
At Orchid Blue, owner ABS Mizan gave a similar description of a group of 60 Chinese nationals who had rented 25 rooms in April for six months. But they left abruptly on August 26 after four and a half months.
Police sources said after the August 25 raid at Marina resort, some suspects moved to different hotels in Cox’s Bazar town.
A visit to several hotels found that groups of Chinese nationals had checked in after August 25 and had subsequently left within a week.
Hotel Royal Pearl in the Sugandha area reported around 20 Chinese nationals stayed over the past month, including a group of seven who checked in on August 27, two days after the Marina resort raid, and left on September 1, two days before Thursday’s arrests.
Sand City Hotel, also near Sugandha, reported a similar group. Staff said the foreigners used Google Translate to communicate. Around 20 checked in on August 25 but stayed only one night due to lack of available rooms.
