Model and actress Romana Islam Swarna was arrested on Thursday on charges of embezzling and cheating Tk 1,48,60,000 from her ex-husband, a Saudi expatriate businessman.

Confirming the matter to Daily Bangladesh, Mohammadpur Police Station OC Abdul Latif said she was arrested in the case of her ex-husband, a Saudi expatriate. “She will be sent to court on Friday,” he added.

The other accused in the case are – Ashrafi Islam Shelly, 60, Nahid Hasan Remi, 36, Annafi, 20, Farhad Ahmed, 30 and an unidentified youth, 37.

According to police sources, Romana Islam mainly targeted expatriates and trapped them “in the name of love” on Facebook. She embezzled millions of money from them in the pretext of “divorcee” or “financial crisis in the family”.

The beguiled people claimed that Romana swindled crores of takas by “marrying 28 people” in this way. 

Each member of the family confessed to being involved in the incident during preliminary interrogation, police said.

Kamrul Islam, an expatriate who was swindled by her, said Romana, at first, made a good relationship with him. She later embezzled Tk 1.90 crore from him in the name of buying a flat in the capital’s Lalmatia. “After I came to the country, she called me at home and made me unconscious, took obscene photos and even took a stamp from me.”

“That’s how she forced me to marry her. It will be taradiddle if I say she divorced me. So, I took the shelter of police protection,” he added with a regret voice.

The police said each member of the family made a huge amount of money by playing the same process of “love and marriage relationship” with the opposite gender.

It is to be noted that Romana Islam Swarna sometimes introduced herself as a model and sometimes as an actress. She used to open different Facebook IDs and built a love affair by targeting the expatriates.