Tk75,000cr laundered via MFS in a year: CID

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has identified around 5,000 agents of Mobile Financial Services (MFS) who laundered some Tk 25,000 crore through hundi in the past four months.

The total amount of money laundered through illegal hundi in a year is approximately Tk75,000 crore, claimed CID chief and Additional IGP Mohammad Ali Mia at a press briefing on Thursday.

The briefing was organised following the arrest of 16 members of three separate gangs who allegedly laundered around Tk 20.70 crore in the last four months.

The CID chief said the country’s declining reserve has put pressure on the economy in recent times and the hundi has always been a big challenge to the reserve. To address this risk to the economy of Bangladesh, the CID began monitoring the hundi activities and found around 5,000 MFS agents involved with illegal hundi trade, he said.

This official said “We came to know about the activities of such gangs when searching for reasons behind the sudden increase of dollar prices in the country. The expatriates’ hard-earned income does not come into the country as dollars. A gang is smuggling it and Bangladesh is suffering from this.”

How money is being laundered

Ali Mia said that the illegal agents of mobile banking and hundi gangs are laundering money being divided into three groups. One group stays abroad and collects dollars from expatriates.

Their Bangladeshi agents then collect the same amount from the money smugglers through MFS and pay it to the families of expatriates.

Later, the money launderer collects the money from the foreign agent. In this way, the black money holders are smuggling crores of taka out of the country. On the other hand, Bangladesh is losing remittances, he further said.

“These gangs are operating many illegal businesses including online gambling, drug trading, gold smuggling, yaba business, and acquisition of fixed assets abroad,” alleged the CID chief.

In reply to a question over why other MFS agents involved in illegal hundi trade are not being arrested, the CID chief said, “Without specific information, we cannot arrest anyone. We only detain a suspect when CID’s findings match with the information of Bangladesh Bank intelligence.”

“Among the identified MFS agents, we targeted three groups and arrested them. After their arrest, hopefully, many of the illegal hundi traders would stop their activities,” he added.

He expressed hope that illegal transactions will decrease by 50-60 per cent within two or three days.