Bangladesh
Money Laundering $7.8 billion laundered through illegal hundi in 1 year
Own Correspondent, Dhaka, Sept 9: Police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has arrested 16 people who were involved in money laundering through hundi by mobile financial service providers (MFS).
CID's investigation revealed that the hundi traders have smuggled 7.8 billion dollars equivalent to Tk 75,000 crore in the last one year.
CID Chief Muhammad Ali Mia gave this information in a press conference on Thursday (September 8).
He said that during the interrogation of the 16 people who were arrested, it was revealed that Tk 20 crore 70 lakh have been smuggled in the last four months. Besides, CID has found more than 5,000 agents doing hundi business through MFS.
Preliminary investigation revealed that they were conducting hundi activities using MFS Seva Bkash, Nagad, Rocket, and Upay. Those 5,000 agents smuggled Tk 25,000 crore in the last four months and Tk 75,000 crore in the last one year.
The CID chief said six of the 16 arrested were Bkash agents, three Bkash distributor sales officers, three Bkash DSS, two hundi agents, one hundi agent's associate, and one hundi operator.
The CID chief said that remittances are the lifeblood of Bangladesh's economy. The government is very active in dealing with the pressure created on the country's economy by the recent global situation. Hundi has always been a big challenge for the reserves. CID started monitoring the hundi activities to deal with this risk to the country's economy.
According to the investigation, an organized gang has been committing the crime of money laundering by illegally smuggling money abroad through hundi and paying the price in local currency without bringing the hard-earned money from abroad to Bangladesh.
He said that the organized hundi racket collects the foreign currency earned by Bangladeshis abroad and pays the equivalent amount in local currency instead of sending it to the country. Criminals are divided into three groups. The first group collects foreign currency from expatriates staying abroad and gives it to those who want to smuggle money out of the country.
The second group consists of money launderers and their associates. They pay the money in local currency to the MFS agents. The third group ie MFS Agents pay in local currency to the MFS number received from the resident abroad.
