Staff Reporter :
Around Tk75,000 crore ($7.8 billion) were laundered through illegal hundi trade in the last one year, while some Tk25,000 crore in the past four months through about 5,000 agents of the country’s different Mobile Financial Services Providers (MFSP).
The specialised law enforcement unit of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) made the disclosure after the arrest of 16 members of a gang including the mastermind behind money laundering worth billions through MFSs.
The CID made the disclosure when the country facing a severe dollar crisis as the government is trying to save and healthier the country’s forex reserve.
The suspects – agents of bKash, Nagad, Upay, and Rocket – used to run a digital hundi racket to bypass the legal banking system, CID said in a statement issued on Thursday.
A decrease in remittances sent by expatriates through digital hundi came up in a recent probe conducted by the Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU).
Briefing to journalists, CID chief Mohammad Ali Mia said, “Hundi is always a big challenge for the country’s reserves. CID started monitoring activities of the Hundi traders considering the risks to the country’s economy. According to the investigation, information is available against an organized gang for illegally smuggling money abroad through hundi and money laundering by paying the price in local currency without bringing the hard-earned money from abroad to Bangladesh. The Hundi gang collects the foreign currency earned by expatriate Bangladeshis and pays the equivalent amount in local currency instead of repatriating it.”
The gang involved with hundi business is divided into three groups, the CID Chief said, adding that the first group collects foreign currency from expatriates staying abroad and the second group gives the money to those who want to smuggle money out of the country.
Based on BFIU information, the members of the Hundi gang were identified and arrested in three separate drives conducted in Dhaka and Chattogram on Wednesday.
CID seized over Tk10 lakh in cash, digital money amounting to almost Tk3.5 crore, 33 SIMs, 34 mobile phones, three
laptops, hard drives, tabs, modems, and cheque book- amon other things.
The accused are – Akhter Hassan, 40, Didarul Alam Sumon, 34, Khershed Alam Emon, 22, Rumon Kanti Das Joy, 34, Rashed Majur Firoz, 45, Md Hussainul Kabir, 35, Nabi Ullah, 37, Md Junaidul Haque, 30, Adibur Rahman, 25, Asif Nawaz, 27, Farhad Hussain, 25, Abdul Basir, 27, Mahabubur Rahman Salim, 50, Abdul Awal Sohag, 36, Fazle Rabbi, 27, and Shamima Akhter, 32, the mastermind.
Most of the suspects are employees of MFS distributors and laundered around Tk20.70 crore, added the CID statement.
Total two money laundering cases have been filed in this regard with Khilgaon and Mohammadpur police stations in the capital. Another case is will be filed soon with the Chattogram Kotwali police station.
As per CID findings, the launderers work in three groups. The first group collects money in foreign currency from expatriates, the second group pays the converted amount to the MFS agents in Bangladesh.
The third group, all working for different MFSs, send the designated amount of money to the numbers provided by the expats.
According to the BFIU report, despite the increase in labourer export abroad, remittances through banking channels are decreasing.
Again, even after discouraging foreign travel in many ways, there has been a huge shortage of cash dollars in the country’s market.
In the financial year 2021-22, expatriates sent money equivalent to $21.03 billion dollars through banking channels, which is $3.75 billion (15 per cent) less than the previous year.
