Law enforcers are trying to identify 5,000 CEOs of Metaverse Foreign Exchange (MTFE) operating cyber ponzi scheme across the country, each managing extensive networks of thousands of investors.
Law enforcers have not yet identified how many people lost their money in MTFE scams. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is in the process of compiling an exhaustive list of these CEOs and their associated investors.
The CID also sought help of Interpol and brought Masud Al Islam, the masterminded of the MTFE scam. The CID primarily suspected around five lakh people might have been scammed by the cyber ponzi scheme of Metaverse Foreign Exchange (MTFE), losing several thousand crores of taka.
Dubai-based app MTFE, short for Metaverse Foreign Exchange Group, enticed individuals in Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by branding itself as a Shariah-compliant platform for cryptocurrency, forex, commodities and stocks with unusually high returns on investments.
No government agency is taking responsibility for the MTFE scam that has left thousands of Bangladeshis staring at catastrophic losses due to the murky nature of its operations.
On August 17, the Android app went under, freezing out the balances of hundreds of thousands of people everywhere. This network reached far and wide, appointing representatives whom it called CEOs in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and Africa.
Most of the victims are from Dhaka, Barishal, Rajshahi, Cumilla, Naogaon, Kushtia, Brahmanbaria and Satkhira, said CID following primary investigation.
Prompted by the shocking scam, law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh have initiated investigations into these CEOs.
The CEOs of MTFE adopted multiple identities and falsified documents to acquire office spaces across various locations which allowed them to maintain a hidden profile, said victims of the fraudulence.
Besides, ongoing inquiries by law enforcement have yielded substantial information, indicating that these perpetrators are on the brink of apprehension, said the investigators.
The tactics employed by these malicious actors encompass enticing investors to acquire USDT (a cryptocurrency) from exchanges like Binance and executing payments via mobile financial services such as bKash, Nagad, Rocket, and even bank transfers.
The CID said that MTFE launched a massive campaign through Facebook and YouTube saying that it is a way of easy income sitting at home, by which many investors got attracted.
A high official of the CID told the Daily Observer that not only MTFE, similar app-based multi-level marketing and cryptocurrency schemes are operating in Bangladesh illegally, and people should be cautious and alert to not get scammed by the illegal business.
