– Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police has said it recently arrested 16 people, most of whom worked for bKash, from Dhaka and Chattogram for their involvement in money laundering through hundi under the cloak of mobile financial services (MFS).
The arrestees include bKash's Rumon Kanti Das Joy, 34, Md Hosainul Kabir, 35, Nobin Ullah, 37, Md Junaidul Haque, 30, Adibur Rahman, 25, Asif Newaz, 27, Farhad Hossain, 25, Abdul Basir, 27, Mahbubur Rahman Selim, 50, Abdul Awal Shohag, 36, and Fazle Rabbi, 27.
The others are Akter Hossain, 40, Didarul Alam Sumon, 34, Khorshed Alam Emon, 22, Rashed Monjur Firoz, 45, and Shamim Akter, 32.
The financial crime and cybercrime units of CID conducted three separate drives to arrest the money launderers.
During interrogation, the arrestees confessed to the CID that they embezzled Tk20.70 crore through hundi in the last four months.
The CID team also seized Tk11 lakh in cash, digital money amounting to almost Tk3.5 crore, 34 mobile phones, three laptops, one tab, 33 SIM cards, one hard disk, seven modems and 10 cheque books from their possession.
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The launderers work in three groups.
The first group collects money in foreign currency from expatriates. The Bangladeshi agents or the second group distributed the money in local currency to MFS agents.
The third group, working for different MFS providers, sends money to the numbers provided by the expats.
Till now, the CID has filed three cases at different police stations in Dhaka and Chattogram over the issue.