Desk Report :
Twenty-five shops in Dubai were fined for illegally sending money to Bangladesh, according to a report published by The National, UAE, on Sunday.
The shops offered Bangladeshi expatriates cheaper money transfers to their home country with the help of an app called bKash, the Department of Economic Development (DED) said.
“DED acted on a tip-off and raided the shops, spread across different areas in Dubai, and found that none of them was licensed to provide money transfer services.
“All the shops advertised the illegal activity in the Bengali language to avoid suspicion,” said Mohammed Ali Rashed Lootah, CEO of the Commercial Compliance and Consumer Protection sector in DED.
No invoices were issued to customers. Shopkeepers instead wrote down the customer’s details and the amount to be transferred in paper slips and the transfer was done electronically.
“We have also confiscated the devices that were used to transfer money. First of all, none of the shops had money transfer authority in their licenses and they didn’t have the mandatory approvals from the UAE Central Bank,” said Mr Lootah.
He added that such practices were harmful not only for the UAE economy and local businesses, but people in general.
“First of all such illegal channels deny the economy of accurate information on the flow of cash. Secondly, they deprive authorised money exchanges and banks of their deserved share of business, and thirdly, customers depending on such illegal channels risk losing their hard-earned money.”
