GP sued over customer care data leak
On 9 December, police arrested four people – GP customer care manager Rubel Mahmud Anik, Parvin Akter Nupur, her elder sister Shefali Begum and a travel agency staff Shamsudduha Khan alias Babu – for cheating and blackmailing people after stealing information from the GP database
Police have filed a case against Grameenphone, the country's largest mobile phone operator, on charge of cheating customers using their confidential information.
The case was filed with Hatirjheel Police Station under the Telecommunication Regulatory Act on Tuesday, following a customer's complaint, Md Harun-Ur-Rashid, deputy commissioner of Tejgaon Division of police, told The Business Standard.
He also said Rubel Mahmud Anik, a GP customer care official of Tejgaon Industrial area, took money from an organised gang in exchange for providing them with confidential data of the Grameenphone customers.
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Later, the gang members swindled many GP customers out of a good sum of money, he said, adding that the telecom company utterly failed to safeguard the privacy of customers' data.
Grameenphone, as an organisation, Anik and one Parvin Akter Nupur have been made accused in the case.
Anik and Parvin have already been in police custody since they were arrested on 9 December. They will be shown arrested in the case. Police will seek a 10-day remand for further interrogation.
On 9 December, police arrested four people – GP customer care manager Rubel Mahmud Anik, Parvin Akter Nupur, her elder sister Shefali Begum and a travel agency staff Shamsudduha Khan alias Babu – for cheating and blackmailing people after stealing information from the GP database.
Meanwhile, Grameenphone has announced to cooperate with any legal step over the issue.
In a statement, GP said, "We have learned from the media that one GP franchise employee is under police investigation in connection with alleged fraudulent activities. Grameenphone is fully committed to supporting law enforcement agencies to prevent fraud."
Arrested Parvin Akter Nupur was the ringleader of the fraud gang. They would target industrialists, businessmen, politicians and high officials of various sectors.
Afterwards, Parvin would develop good relations with them through mobile phone chats. She would even pose as a fake girlfriend of the targeted persons. Later, she, along with other gang members, would use their personal information to blackmail them into paying a good sum of money. They even extorted Tk50 lakh from their targets, according to the case statement.
The gang had a fake lawyer who threatened people to implicate in a false rape case and leak their personal data to extract the demanded money. They also tricked rich people into giving them a large amount of money in donation.
Police sources said police are looking for the man who worked as the lawyer of the gang. Parvin, the ringleader of the gang, would live in a luxurious apartment in Gulshan. At least 20 people fell prey to the gang.
