In mid-2020, Roxana Akhtar, a garment worker living in the capital’s Mirpur area, checked her mobile banking account and discovered that someone had withdrawn Tk 18,000, her three months’ savings, through multiple transactions. She had not made any transactions, nor had she shared her password or PIN with anyone. It was later revealed that criminals had cloned her national identity card and mobile number, accessed her account through a “SIM swap” scam, and withdrawn the money. She filed a complaint but received no response. Today, the number of victims like her exceeds one lakh across the country.

This work was previously published in The Daily Star on February 22, 2026