Several circles are swindling crores of taka using mobile banking or mobile financial services (MFS). One such gang made taka 3 crore hundi in four months using MFS. The financial crime and cybercrime unit of the Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has received information about transactions worth 200 to 300 crore taka per month through the 2000 SIMs of MFS agents.
CID chief Additional IGP Mohammad Ali Mia conveyed this information at a press conference organized at Malibagh CID office in the capital on Tuesday (November 22).
He said that on Monday (November 21) night, the CID arrested 6 members of the gang after conducting raids in Comilla and Dhaka. They are: Mir Md. Kamrul Hasan Shishir (28), Khorshed Alam (34), Md. Ibrahim Khalil (34), Kazi Shah Newaz (46), Md. Azizul Haque Talukder (42) and Md. Nizam Uddin (35).
The CID chief also said that the organized gang collects the foreign currency earned by expatriate Bangladeshis and pays it in local currency at the equivalent value of that foreign currency instead of sending it to Bangladesh. In this work, the criminals are divided into three groups.
The first group collects foreign currency from expatriates based abroad, giving it to those who want to smuggle money out of the country.
The second group of traffickers and their accomplices paid the money in local currency to MFS agents.
A third group i.e. MFS agent pays the price in local currency to the MFS number received from the resident abroad.
The two gangs are constantly raking in crores of taka through Cash-in using MFS illegally. From last April to August each cycle made about 3 crore taka hundi.
CID chief Mohammad Ali Miah also said that transactions of Tk. 200 to 300 crores are made every month through two thousand agent SIMs of bKash Distribution House JA Enterprises located in Laksam, Comilla, owned by Mohammad Khorshed Alam. The CID worked with two suspicious agent SIMs, through which it got information about suspicious transactions worth Tk. 3 crore in the last 6 months.
While working with these two SIMs, the CID found 11 more such agent SIMs, through which such suspicious digital hundi information was available.
Several agent members of the 2000 agent SIM are directly involved in illegal activities like hundi.
They are using several software to complete the work of digital hundi in easy accurate and fastest way. According to the questioning of the arrested, freedomflexi24.com is a software through which Saudi expatriate hundi traders used to input the numbers to which the money would be sent in Bangladesh and the money was directly distributed to the recipient through Bangladeshi hundi agents with the help of various MFS agents in Bangladesh.
CID chief Mohammad Ali Mia also said that with the help of MFS agents, the gang members are also conducting many illegal businesses including online gambling, video streaming virtual currency buying and selling, drug trading, gold smuggling, Yaba business, along with acquiring local wealth abroad.
11 mobiles, 18 SIM cards, a laptop and a tab were recovered from the arrested.
In response to a question from journalists, the CID chief said that there are many distribution houses under all mobile financial services. The owners and employees of these distribution houses should monitor the activities of their subordinate agents. If they do not monitor, they will come under the law.
Besides bKash, Rocket and Nagad authorities – those who have approved the distribution house must monitor the distribution houses. If they do not monitor, then we will be forced to bring them under the law. Expats should send money through their banking channels. In that case the country will prosper and they will not be under the surveillance of the law enforcement agencies.