A Dhaka court on Thursday placed five accused, including two foreign nationals, on a three-day police remand in a case filed over allegations of operating online fraud, VoIP calls and online gambling through cyberspace.

The accused are Md Soyeb Ahmad Tamim, 27, Abdur Rahim, 21, Md Alamin, 38, Zhang Pengquan, 36, and Shen Xuefeng, 60.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Arifur Rahman passed the order after police produced the accused before the court, seeking a seven-day remand for each.

According to the case statement, detectives conducted a raid at Kuril Bishwaroad under Vatara Police Station on 31 July, arrested two suspects and seized 330 SIM cards along with several mobile phones.

Police later carried out further raids in the Vatara and Uttara areas, arrested the other accused allegedly involved in the syndicate, and seized SIM cards registered in the names of other people, several mobile phones, a laptop, Tk107,000 in cash and 48 Chinese RMB notes.

The remand plea said that preliminary interrogation revealed that the accused were members of an organised fraud ring and used social media to communicate and illegally collect, store, transport and trade SIM cards registered in other people’s names, which were used for cyber fraud, online gambling, VoIP calls and other fraudulent activities.