Law enforcement authorities in Naogaon have dismantled a criminal honeytrap ring following a sophisticated extortion scheme targeting a local government employee. Officers arrested three individuals, including a woman, after they allegedly trapped an assistant field worker from the Local Government Engineering Department, filmed compromising footage, and attempted to extort a massive financial ransom.
The incident unfolded in the Mandha Upazila, where the victim was targeted by a predatory network exploiting vulnerable individuals through engineered social traps. According to police records, the sequence of events began on Saturday morning when several individuals approached the victim near the historic Kusumba Mosque area. Under the guise of inviting him for tea, they lured him into a secluded tin-shed room. Shortly after consuming tea and cigarettes offered by the group, the victim reportedly experienced sudden dizziness, indicating that a chemical substance may have been administered to incapacitate him.
Once the victim was disoriented, the perpetrators dragged him into an adjoining room. A female member of the syndicate then forced physical contact, while an accomplice covertly recorded the interaction on a mobile phone. When the government employee strongly protested the setup, the group physically assaulted him. They proceeded to strip him of his garments and recorded further compromising videos to ensure absolute leverage for blackmail.
Armed with the illicit footage, the gang threatened to leak the materials across social media platforms unless the victim paid an extortion sum of 1 million taka. Beyond the initial threats, the criminals pillaged his belongings, forcefully taking 11,900 taka in cash. They also compelled him to sign multiple bank cheques—writing 120,000 taka on one while leaving another completely blank. To secure future control, they forced his signatures onto remaining cheque leaves and three blank non-judicial stamp papers.
The following day, syndicate members attempted to cash the 120,000-taka cheque at a branch of Agrani Bank located in the Satihat area of Mandha Upazila. Fortunately, the victim had anticipated the move and liaised with bank management beforehand to temporarily freeze account transactions. Unable to withdraw the funds, the suspects lingered inside the bank branch while awaiting updates. Acting on a swift tip-off, local police rushed to the scene and arrested Konok Kumar and Sajjad Hossain, though two other accomplices managed to flee. Officers seized the signed cheque directly from the premises and subsequently apprehended Tanjima Khatun based on intelligence gathered from the detained suspects.
Mandha Police Station Officer-in-Charge Khurshed Alam revealed that this syndicate had established a pattern of criminal behaviour. Investigators discovered that just days prior, on Friday, the same group had ensnared another victim named Faizul Molla using identical honeytrap tactics, stripping him of 60,000 taka in cash and an Android mobile phone. Separate criminal cases have been registered regarding both incidents. The three arrested suspects were produced before a court on Monday and subsequently remanded to Naogaon jail, while police continue manhunts to track down the remaining fugitives.
