DHAKA, Sept 8, 2022 (BSS) - The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police has launched massive drives against money laundering through 'hundi' after arresting 16 people who reportedly laundered a huge amount of money out of the country using mobile financial service (MFS).

The CID has already identified around 5,000 'hundi' agents who are involved in money laundering using MFS, said CID chief Mohammad Ali Mia at a press briefing at the CID conference room here today.

"The CID started investigation to find out reasons about the sudden surge in dollar price in the country. It revealed that hundi traders have smuggled $7.8 billion equivalent to Taka 75,000 crore out of the country in the last one year," he said.

During the interrogation, he said, the arrested money launderers confessed that they laundered Taka 20, 70,000 in the last four months.

The CID recovered Taka 1,046,680 in cash, Tk 34,647,029 deposited in three SIMs and 34 mobile phone sets from the 16 arrested persons. Four separate cases were filed in this connection, said the CID chief.

"Our preliminary investigation revealed that the 5000 launderers are involved in hundi trading using b-kash, Nagad, Rocket and Upay," said Mohammad Ali, also Additional Inspector General of Police (Addl IGP).

Of the 16 persons, six were b-kash agents, three b-kash distributor sales officers, three Bkash Bikash-DSSs, two hundi agents, one hundi agent's associate and one hundi operator.

 "Money laundering is a big challenge for forex reserves. According to our investigation, an organized gang is using illegal channel like hundi to send money abroad. These people make payments in local currency here without bringing the hard-earned currencies from abroad to the country," he said.

The CID chief said the illegal activities are crimes under section 2(Sha) (14) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2012, which is punishable under Section 4(2) of the same Act.

The arrestees are - Akhter Hossain (hundi agent), Didarul Alam Sumon (hundi agent), Khorshed Alam Imon (associate of hundi agent), Rumon Kanti Das Joy (bkash agent), Rashed Manjur Feroz (bkash Agent), Md Hossainul Kabir (bkash DSS), Nabin Ullah (bkash DSS), Md Junaidul Haque (bkash DSS), Adibur Rahman (bkash DSO), Asif Nawaz (Bkash DSO), Farhad Hossain (bkash DSO), Abdul Basir (bkash agent), Mahabubur Rahman Salim (bkash agent), Abdul Awal Sohag (bkash agent) and Fazle Rabbi (bkash agent).