The arrest of 16 agents from several mobile financial services has revealed how illegal hundi businesses have deprived Bangladesh of billions of dollars amid a shortage of foreign currency and who are involved with business, police say.
At least 5,000 agents from several mobile financial services, including bKash, Nagad, Rocket and Upay are involved with the illicit money transfer, depriving Bangladesh of about $7.8 billion in inward remittances a year due to the crime, CID’s Additional IGP Mohammad Ali said at a media briefing on Thursday.
The Criminal Investigation Department opened a probe into the business after instability hit the price of the US dollar in Bangladesh. The police unit arrested 16 people in three separate raids in Dhaka and Chattogram for their alleged ties to money laundering behind the mobile financial services.
The arrestees have been identified as Akhtar Hossain, 40, Didarul Alam Sumon, 34, Khorshed Alam Emon, 22, Rumon Kanti Das Joy, 34, Rashed Manjur Firoz, 45, Md Hossainul Kabir, 35, Nabin Ullah, 37, Md Junaidul Haque, 30, Adibur Rahman, 25, Asif Newyaz, 27, Farhad Hossain, 25, Abdul Basir, 27, Mahbubur Rahman Selim, 50, Abdul Awal Sohag, 36, Fazle Rabbi, 27 and Shamima Akter, 32.
The suspects are members of an organised group that laundered money out of Bangladesh through hundi, which uses illegal methods to transfer money across international borders.
The group doesn’t send migrant workers’ foreign currency home to Bangladesh directly, but instead pays their families in the local currency, Ali said.
“The law enforcers have initially found bKash, Nagad, Rocket and Upay agents involved in the business.”
Groups are involved in three layers of the laundering process. The first collects foreign currency from Bangladesh expatriates abroad and hands the funds over to another group who were involved in money laundering in Bangladesh.
The second group — money smugglers and their accomplices — contacts the agents of mobile money companies and transfers the funds in the local currency.
The third group, MFS agents, makes payments in the local currency to the mobile money account numbers received from foreign cartels.
With the help of MFS agents, the smugglers build wealth abroad and operate illegal casinos and drug and gold trade, Ali said.
