Police have arrested 23 people, including Ansar members, Rohingyas, for alleged involvement in making counterfeit national ID cards (NIDs), birth certificates, and passports for Rohingyas and notorious criminals in the country.

Mohammad Harun Or Rashid, chief of Detective Branch (DB) of police, during a press briefing at the Dhaka Metropolitan Police media centre on Monday said the gang has been involved in this racket since 2019, and made 143 passports for Rohingyas in the last three months.

He said among 23 arrestees, three are Rohingyas, two are Ansar Force members.

The DB police in a raid arrested three Rohingya women and men, ten Bangladeshis with passports and computers from Agargaon, Mohammadpur, Jatrabari, Badda in the capital on February 23.

Based on their given information, the detectives carried out drives in different areas of Cox's Bazar, Tangail and Dhaka on February 25. Two Ansar members, and eight middle men of the Rohingya and Bangladeshi brokers syndicate gang, were arrested during the drives.

The law enforcers also seized 17 passports, 13 fake NIDs, five computers, three printers, 24 mobile phones and hundreds of documents related to the making of passports were recovered from their possessions during the raids.

The DB chief said that the syndicate members used to make birth certificates, NID cards and passports for Rohingya children, women and men in exchange of money.

The cycle has been doing this in three parts. A group brought Rohingyas from Cox's Bazar, Bandarban, Khagrachari to Dhaka. Another group makes birth certificate, NID cards for them. Finally, the other group arranges for money deposit, biometrics and photo taking through Ansar members in various regional passport offices including Dhaka.

He said, they usually charge Tk 5,000 to 12,000 for the birth certificate within six hours, Tk 25,000 for NID card within three days and Tk 1.20 lakh for passport.

The DB chief said that the arrestee used the addresses of Dhaka, Rajshahi, Narayanganj, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Shariatpur, Gopalganj and Barisal districts to create birth certificates and NIDs and then make passports based on those documents.

All arrestees are now on five-day remand.