Bank card skimmer Shariful remains off radar

It is almost unheard of for a person to take a cashier job after returning from studying abroad. Yet, Shariful Islam, a 32-year-old capable man, did just that, but with a master plan.

After studying in Russia, he returned home in 2010 and took up a job at a supershop. There, he would steal the bank card information of customers, clone the card, and withdraw money.

Shariful became such a master at his art of stealing that he ended up being a millionaire while working as a cashier with a lowly Tk 5,000 salary. He lived a lavish life depositing the stolen money in his and his wife Shamima’s accounts.

His wicked schemes came to a pause when Shariful was arrested back in 2010. He was detained again in 2013 in Chattogram in two cases over card fraud and remained in jail for 18 months.

After his release, he tried his hand in setting up a consultancy firm but soon returned to his old ways of card skimming.

Caught in CCTV cameras while skimming ATM cards at booths, he was arrested again in April 2018. A case over ATM card fraud was also registered against him with the Banani Police Station. ‎However, after two months of his arrest, Shariful went out on bail.

Now, police cannot trace Shariful, even after two years, posing a severe threat to the country’s banking system.

CID police inspector Md Shahinul Islam told the Business Insider Bangladesh, “We have filed a report to the court after investigating the money laundering case against Shariful.”

“He is a professional criminal who has been stealing money through card fraud for a decade. He is a threat to the country’s banking system,” the CID inspector said.

Shariful has nine fraud cases against him in Dhaka and Chattogram, he added.

How Shariful stole millions:

According to the CID report, Shariful used to wear a wristwatch that had a special card reader attached to it.

During transactions, the customer’s PIN number would be recorded on the watch.

Afterwards, returning home, Shariful would clone the cards which he would use to withdraw money from ATM booths.

He would disguise using a wig and sunglasses to avoid detection in the CCTV cameras installed at the booths.

The CID report said that Shariful often identified himself as Mithu Rahman, Nazmus Shakib, Taufiqur Rahman.

He has also made fake national identity cards (NIDs) under these names. However, he did not create any NID under his real name.‎

Shariful’s riches:

CID has found multiple NIDs of Shariful and his wife Shamima.

They also found the duo maintained 11 bank accounts. Some of these accounts were also named under fake companies.

From 2010 to 2018, these accounts transacted almost Tk 1.73 crore. These accounts had Tk 10.5 lakh in them when he was arrested in 2018.‎