Mohammad Jamil Khan

Six months ago, 52-year-old constable Md Iqbal started working in the traffic department of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

Boran Uddin posed as a Bangladeshi expatriate living in Dubai or Qatar, working for an international travel agency.

A transnational syndicate has been smuggling arms into Bangladesh from India and Myanmar for about four years. Its target group is criminals who would use arms in polls violence and Rohingya camps, say law enforcers.

With an aim to provide quick support to victims of cyber harassment, the police headquarters (PHQ) is going to introduce an artificial intelligence (AI) tool with all-women special wing called "Police Cyber Support for Women" (PCSW).

Reaching deep inside the Sundarbans, one will be taken aback to see mobile banking agents at such a remote place. But their set-ups inside the forest do a lot to help thousands of anglers, who build temporary houses there during fishing season.

It seems the efforts to make the Sundarbans safe and secure for anglers is still far from fruition. Finally rid of robbers in 2018, they have now become “captive” to a high interest loan or “dadon” system, which they have to subscribe to even get access to the forest’s waters.

Mofizul Hoque Tutul (47) is a cleaner and gardener, employed on a temporary basis at the Agargaon passport office.

CTTC officials have discovered a transnational syndicate that embezzles hefty amounts of foreign currencies through an international brokerage house.

They surrendered and handed over their arms in search of a regular life. But three years after the prime minister declared the Sundarbans “robber-free”, the robbers in question are yet to find a viable path in life, with no thanks to the endless web of proceedings of previously filed criminal cases.

When Jibon Sarker (not his real name) joined the police force as a constable about 10 years ago, he took it for a life-changing job. In many ways, it is; but not for the right reasons.

Around eight years ago, the government established passport and visa wings at different Bangladesh missions to provide better services to expatriates and visitors.

Twenty-year-old Md Bijoy has already paid Tk 2 lakh for taking a cleaner’s job in Dubai and has even got a visa to the Gulf emirate.

Some Awami League leaders and activists in Jashore have long been running an illegal arms business in the country’s south-western districts, exploiting their political links to make big money and to avoid arrest, police and local politicians said.

They have no degrees. Some of them have not even completed primary education. Yet, they learnt how to trick Facebook users into giving them their social media IDs and passwords.

There is a growing market for highly addictive drug crystal meth in the capital, operated mostly through encrypted messaging apps, officials have found out.

Sometimes he introduced himself as an officer at the land office, sometimes as an officer in the deputy commissioner’s office and at other times as an influential person in a government office.

For almost six years, members of a gang from Barishal have been targeting money exchange agents in the capital and looting huge amounts of cash from them.

Militant outfit Ansar al Islam, said to be the Bangladesh chapter of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, is now targeting non-Muslims and transgender people to recruit them into militancy, according to the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC).

The Dhaka airport authorities have seized Saudi riyals and Singapore dollars worth about Tk 12.5 crore from a Singapore-bound garment consignment, in a first such incident of smuggling of foreign currency in recent memory.

The government has moved to bring arms sales and licencing procedures under an automation system to prevent illegal use of legal arms in the country.