CID arrested two more bKash agents on charge of money laundering
Police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has arrested two agents of bKash for laundering around Tk. 50 crore out of the country through hundi.
The CID said in a press release that the two hundi dealers were arrested from Chatkhil area of Noakhali on Tuesday based on the report of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU). The names of the arrested are Shahadat Hossain and Balai Chandra Das.
Since long these two agents of bKash were working as hundi dealers in the area. However, in the run-up to Eid, when expatriates started sending more remittances from abroad, the hundi business in this area became more crowded recently.
CID said in a press release that they have come to know that mobile banking agents are laundering billions of taka abroad through Hundi under the cover of Adarsha Telecom, Babar Telecom, New Saree Gallery and Cosmetics etc. of Chatkhil police station of Noakhali district. After analyzing the transaction details of the CID, they found out that these institutions have laundered around fifty crores taka abroad in the last three years.
The CID said that the arrested Shahadat Hossain admitted that several expatriates including his uncle Manwar from Qatar, Mizan from Saudi Arabia, Momin from Hong Kong collected remittances from abroad and kept the money with themselves instead of sending it to Bangladesh. Later sent the number to Shahadat via WhatsApp and IMO to cash-in on bKash. After receiving instructions, various individuals and organizations in Bangladesh deposited money as Shahadat's various bank accounts.
Shahadat Hossain withdraws the money deposited in the bank and collects the e-money of bKash agent number. Shahadat and Balai send the money to bKash numbers of the expatriates' relatives as per the instructions of the people living abroad. This is how this cycle continues the business of hundi.
In addition to arresting two people in this operation, agent SIM, laptop, 7 mobile phones, pen drive, check book, bank ATM card and 19,000 taka cash were recovered. A case under Special Powers Act and Digital Security Act has been registered against them at DMP's Paltan police station.
Earlier in November, CID and Cyber Crime Unit of Police arrested six people including bKash officials from Dhaka and Cumilla for their association with Hundi.
At that time, CID arrested bKash distributor sales officer (DSO) Kazi Shah Newaz, distribution house manager Khorshed Alam, three bKash agents Md. Ibrahim Khalil, Md. Nizam Uddin and Md. Azizul Haque Talukdar.
Similarly, in September last year, CID's Financial Crime and Cyber Crime Unit jointly conducted three raids in Dhaka and Chittagong and arrested 16 people, including bKash officials, for their involvement in illegal hundi business. It has been reported that the members of this Hundi gang laundered Tk. 207 million in four months. At that time, three cases were registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in Chittagong's Kotwali Police Station, Dhaka's Mohammadpur and Khilgaon Model Police Stations.
And in August, around 300 bKash agent SIMs of Chittagong and Cumilla divisions were closed on this complaint. The CID also investigated that complaint.
