A gang has laundered Tk 3 crore abroad in the five months from April to August this year using Mobile Financial Services (MFS). According to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police, the smuggling happened by paying the expatriates in the local currency of the respective country without bringing the money to Bangladesh. Six members of this gang were arrested from Dhaka and Comilla last Monday and yesterday Tuesday.

A press conference was organized in this regard yesterday afternoon at the CID’s head office in Malibagh, Dhaka. In the press conference, CID chief Mohammad Ali Mia said that the members of the gang work in several parts to pay the expatriates in local currency without bringing the money to Bangladesh. A group collects foreign currency from expatriates staying abroad. Those who want to smuggle money out of the country, give them that currency. The second group takes the local currency from the trafficker and his accomplices and gives it to the MFS agent. The third party (MFS agent) collects from the expatriate to the relative’s number and pays in local currency.

According to the CID, transactions of Tk 200 to 300 crores are done every month through the SIMs of 2000 agents of Mohammad Khorshed Alam’s Bikash Distribution House JA Enterprises in Laksam, Comilla. The CID works with two suspicious agent SIMs, through which suspicious transactions of Rs.3 crores are obtained in a few months. Based on this, 11 more agent SIMs were found.

CID chief Mohammad Ali said that among the 2,000 agents in SIM, several are involved in hundi. They are also using some software to make this process of digital hundi easy, accurate and fast.

The six arrested are Mir Md. Kamrul Hasan, Khorshed Alam, Ibrahim Khalil, Kazi Shahnewaz, Azizul Haque Talukder and Nizam Uddin. 11 mobile phones, 18 SIM cards, 1 laptop and 1 tab were recovered in the raid.