3 arrested in Bangladesh for merely trading Bitcoin

[DTalk]

so I understand they are being arrested because they used bitcoin and did some business involving bitcoin. Is a very unfortunate situation I wonder how long they will be arrested,

It's the news agency who are promoting they were arrested because of dealing bitcoin transactions. Like as I stated before, they have been committed crime like deceiving their customers with big amount.

jailed for up to 12 years.

It's a very high and exaggerated prison sentence.

I doubt they will be sentenced for 12 years, may be 2 or 3 years however up to 12 years is the law along with some fine in some cases.

With this news, people who were dealing bitcoin are now gone off line (most of them), I was trying to exchange BTC/BDT yesterday. Didn't find anyone, it has seriously affected the enhancement of bitcoin in Bangladesh.
I welcome the Police raid in one way, because a lot of scammers were deceiving people with exchanging bitcoin which probably will decrease now.

I have read the news at thursday. One of the arrested person is my familiar in facebook before joning this forum. Basically they have been arrested for cheating with customers in their website (https://easypaidbd.com/). The Cyber Police of Bogura investigated into matter with the report of one victim  who has been cheated by them.

Are you talking about Maruf Billah? If I can remember correctly, I have seen him on one of the facebook group, I used to think he is a trusted guy, then this.


If cyber police wants, they can seize all the local exchange in Bangladesh, these exchanges somehow left their identity in facebook or any other platform. I think cyber police aren't putting so much attention on dealing bitcoin only, if they would, they could arrest people daily. It's easy to track down people who are exchanging bitcoin in our local.
Nevertheless, to all the Bangladeshi people, please be aware of dealing face to face, it can be a trick to arrest you. Only do deal with persons whom you do trust and have several dealing online. Don't mess up with anyone, they may give information to cyber police about you which may cause an issue.

[Caladonian]

They seized two laptops, 16 mobile phones, and 20 SIM cards from the detainees after the arrest on Thursday!

That doesn't look like they were "merely" trading in cryptos. I am sure there is more behind the entire story! A normal trader would not use such huge amounts of mobile phones and sim cards. They must have done some kind of illegal money transmissions which can be classified as "Laundering"!

Which undoubtedly right, why would you need that much of gadgets if you are just trading normally, chances that they are facilitating other illegal act which may need them to have many devices for many accounts being created from different websites.

Illegal deed needs to be paid off, from what the situations around there's a lots of scamming practices so it's better to see and read news like this as those
who's doing illegal activities will known that it's punishable, more arrest with alarm people not to do the same.

[DTalk]

Which undoubtedly right, why would you need that much of gadgets if you are just trading normally, chances that they are facilitating other illegal act which may need them to have many devices for many accounts being created from different websites.

The reason they were using a lot of gadgets is- here in my local, when they pay to the customers, they use bkash, rocket (local payment method). These payment methods have several limit per day/ per month. When the limit exceeds, they can't send money to the customers. That's the reason of using several gadgets.

[Em00n01]

As far as i know, they were related to some scams. Someone reported that they took BTC without paying the seller. Cyber police mark it in the website.

[Xising]

They were robbers who were robbing innocent people. What is so bad about that? The title made me think that innocent people were arrested. It is a known fact that Bitcoin is not completely anonymous in nature which is why it is possible to trace BTC TX to an extent.

KYC process makes it even more easier to trace a transaction in this aspect.

Well, if that's the case, then to them I say, that serves them right. Many countries have already lifted their sanctions on cryptocurrencies seeing that it's not a scam, and it is, nonetheless, a legitimate asset that can be used for business and trade. If there are some people that would capitalize on that in the wrong way, in this case, use it to rob people, then surely, everybody who supports cryptocurrencies would rather see them get caught and be punish because that would give everyone the peace of mind that authorities have the backs of people who are using cryptocurrencies in the legal way.

[Sithara007]

Retarded countries have stone age rules. It looks like these people were arrested for converting the Bitcoins in their wallets to fiat cash. Sooner or later, the Bangladeshi authorities will realize that it is not possible to ban Bitcoin. If they want to ban Bitcoin, then they need to shut down the entire internet and I am not sure how practical that is. The best thing to do for the government would be to make it legal and taxable, just like the other 200 or so countries have done recently.

[bobsav2121]

These guys aren't the only ones... 2 in NY got caught laundering bitcoin too... https://cryptotradernews.com/insights/two-plead-guilty-in-n-y-crypto-money-laundering-case/

These type of people are the ones holing back crypto adoption...

[BitFinnese]

The news is vague, it's not clear if those people arrested only because they trade Bitcoin or also involved on another criminal activity.
Nevertheless, they've seen it coming since Bitcoin is illegal on Bangladesh.

They also did not state the website that was owned by those people who are arrested.  Very unprofessional journalism. 


It seems that Bangladesh authority is aggressively hunting Bitcoin user in their country.  One of the member here who is a Bangladesh nationality is also concern about his IP on this site and created this thread:
Will Theymos publish IP address of users?

[DTalk]

It seems that Bangladesh authority is aggressively hunting Bitcoin user in their country.

Not really, till now, I am concerned about 2 such cases.

Read-

OP, these 3 people weren't arrested due to trade bitcoin. They have cheated people. In recent days, they have cheated BDT 100k from an user or a group of user. Prior to this, they have been cheating others for a long time. The people whom they scammed BDT 100k has filed a lawsuit to the cyber police and that's why they were arrested.

Last year, we have seen some people were also arrested in Dhanmondi. They too were not arrested due to trading bitcoin, they were mining bitcoin for a long time. After having solid information about that, police raid and arrested them.

One of the member here who is a Bangladesh nationality is also concern about his IP on this site and created this thread:
Will Theymos publish IP address of users?

It's me. I am little bit worried because I am running one local forum for bitcoin enthusiast. In fact, the goal is to provide appropriate information about bitcoin.

Forum- www.bitcoinbangladesh.info

[Ailmand]

They wouldn't get arrested if they didn't commit a crime. Even if they're just trading or doing activities involving blockchain technology if it's against the law, they would still pay for it.
That's the risk of pursuing cryptocurrency in restricted countries. They should face the consequences. 

[jak3]

this was pretty much a misleading topic, they were not trading they were doing it with bad intentions. we can already see a lot of illiteracy rates rising in Bangladesh and youth is trying their best to get a good education. even if we ignore the negative side of this there is still a lot they have to develop.

[Spider A4]

In my opinion after reading the post, the 3 guys arrested have not committed any fraud. They sold the bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies through the will of their customers. At least, it was never reported that they stole the bitcoins, neither did they collect money from their customers without transferring the bitcoins. I expect the Bangladesh authorities to release them without any further charges. There is nothing illegal about their activities. Their government should also accept bitcoins.

Bangladesh bank against in Bitcoin https://bdnews24.com/economy/2017/12/27/bangladesh-bank-warns-against-transaction-in-illegal-bitcoin-other-cryptocurrencies how can government should be accept it? Rules & Regulation already set. I think they scammed people money by using exchange sites which is mention in the news.

[Ucy]

It is possible that the govt was able to detected owners easily because they are centralized platforms.
Their privacy would have been protected If they had traded Peer-to-peer on an decentralized marketplace without using single wallet address.

[yogeko]

This is misinformation how can you say arrested because they where trading bitcoin, from the body of your post I can tell you that the gang arrested are more of cyber criminals who operate on a website which police have blocked, so how do you relate operating a website and trading bitcoin?

No I don't think its that. I think trading Crypto is illegal in Bangladesh and they were operating an illegal website (or exchange) that was converting Fiat to Crypto. I hope these governments stop treating crypto as some illegal trade.

[creeps]

As far as i know, they were related to some scams. Someone reported that they took BTC without paying the seller. Cyber police mark it in the website.

Yes, its related to the scam or even a hackers so its a great job for the cybercrime group of Bangladesh. 16 mobile phones for only 3 persons are already suspicious, that cryptogang are more involve into some serious transactions in cryptomarket. More group like this are still stealing money from the ordinary investors, i hope they will also be arrested soon.

[dark1234]

so far, their case is still in the process of developing whether the website is blocked by the police because of fraud / pisssing or problems with bitcoin and crypto trading

[kingpin4321]

Well then there might be a law against bitcoin or cryptocurrency in Bangladesh that's if the news it true.
This goes to show that some government are really fighting against the global dominance of bitcoin

[BlackFor3st]

This is what others might avoid especially if crypto currency has been declared illegal in their country as there will be law that will surely punish someone who will use crypto currency.

Though the attempt of using bitcoin even though it is banned in their country is very interesting to know as they still keep on trading even knowing that they will be punish once they will get caught. I am hoping in the future that Bangladesh will start to acknowledge virtual currency especially bitcoin.

[sunno330]

As far as i know, they were related to some scams. Someone reported that they took BTC without paying the seller. Cyber police mark it in the website.

Yup. There are two people fully involved with crime (Scam). They scammed a lot of money from innocent people and police searched them. People who got scammed, they case against of https://easypaidbd.com
So that is the news.

[akamit]

Though the attempt of using bitcoin even though it is banned in their country is very interesting to know as they still keep on trading even knowing that they will be punish once they will get caught.

As the news says they have shut down a website but didn't mention what type of business those three guys were running. I assumed, they definitely were running a currency exchange site where they were buying selling cryptocurrency with BDT. Of course Bitcoin is banned there and on the other hand they were running an unregistered business which is a financial service. And afaik in all countries, all the financial services must go under some strict rules from the central banks.

Yup. There are two people fully involved with crime (Scam). They scammed a lot of money from innocent people and police searched them. People who got scammed, they case against of https://easypaidbd.com

How do you confirm that the exchange was easypaidbd.com? The news didn't mention any name or I missed it somehow?