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Online Reporter/

Several circles are swindling crores of rupees using Mobile Financial Services (MFS). One such gang made three crore hundi in four months using MFS. Not only this, the financial crime and cybercrime unit of the police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has received information that two thousand MFS agents have transacted between Rs 200 and 300 crore per month through SIM.

The CID received such information during the initial interrogation after arresting 6 members of such a gang in raids in Comilla and Dhaka last night (November 21).

The arrested members of the gang are – Mir Md. Kamrul Hasan Shishir (28), Khorshed Alam (34), Md. Ibrahim Khalil (34), Kazi Shah Newaz (46), Md. Azizul Haque Talukder (42) and Md. Nizam Uddin (35).

11 mobiles, 18 SIM cards, a laptop and a tab were recovered from the arrested.

This information was given by the head of the organization Mohammad Ali Mia in a press conference organized at Malibagh CID office on Tuesday afternoon.

The CID chief said that the organized hundichakra collects the foreign currency earned by expatriate Bangladeshis and pays it in local currency at the equivalent value of that foreign currency instead of sending it to the country. In this work, the criminals are divided into three groups. The first group collects foreign currency from expatriates based abroad, giving it to those who want to smuggle money out of the country. The second group of traffickers and their accomplices paid the money in local currency to MFS agents. A third group i.e. MFS agent pays the price in local currency to the MFS number received from the resident abroad.

He said that the two gangs are constantly making crores of rupees through cash-in using MFS illegally. From last April to August each cycle made about 3 crore hundi.

CID chief Mohammad Ali Mia also said that Bikash Distribution House JA Enterprises located in Laksam, Comilla, owned by Mohammad Khorshed Alam, transacts 200 to 300 crore rupees every month through two thousand agent SIMs. The CID worked with two suspicious agent SIMs, through which it got information about suspicious transactions worth Rs 3 crore in the last 6 months. While dealing with these two SIMs, CID found 11 more such agent SIMs. Through whom such suspicious and digital hundi information is available. Several agent members of the 2000 agent SIM are directly involved in illegal activities like hundi. They are using several software to complete the digital hundi work in an easy, accurate and fastest way.

In the interrogation of the arrested, it was revealed that ‘Freedomflexi24.com’ is a software through which the Saudi expatriate hundi traders used to input the numbers to which the money would be sent in Bangladesh and the money was directly distributed to the recipient through Bangladeshi hundi agents with the help of various MFS agents in Bangladesh.

The CID chief said, with the help of MFS agents, the gang members are also operating many illegal businesses including online gambling, video streaming virtual currency trading, drug trading, gold smuggling, yaba business, besides acquiring local wealth abroad.

In response to a question from journalists, the head of CID said that there are many distribution houses under all mobile financial services. The owners and employees of a distribution house should monitor the activities of their subordinate agents. If they do not monitor, they will come under the law.

Besides, the distribution house must be monitored by the authorities of Bikash, Rocket and Cash who have approved the distribution house. If they do not monitor, we will be forced to bring them under the law. Expatriates should send them through banking channels. In that case the country will improve and they will not be under the surveillance of the law enforcement agencies.