Some Tk25,000 crore has been laundered by around 5,000 agents of the country's different Mobile Financial Services Providers (MFSP) through hundi in the past four months.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) disclosed the matter on Thursday following the arrest of 16 members of a gang including the mastermind behind money laundering worth billions through MFSs.
The arrestees 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.
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.
The total amount of money laundered through illegal hundi trade amounted to some $7.8 billion (Tk75,000 crore) in the past year, CID estimated.
A decrease in remittances sent by expatriates through digital hundi came up in a recent probe conducted by the Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU).
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.
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 expatreiates, 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 $2,1.03 billion dollars through banking channels, which is $3.75 billion (15%) less than the previous year.
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