5 held for laundering Tk 400cr through digital Hundi

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) personnel in separate drives arrested five members of a syndicate of Hundi traders for laundering money around Tk 400 crores.

They have laundered the money of Bangladeshi expatriates who are working in Dubai through digital Hundi using mobile banking service instead of sending them through legal banking channels, said superintendent of CID police Azad Rahman on Thursday noon.
CID conducted several drives in Dhaka and Chattogram and arrested Nasim Ahmed, 62, the owner of Tasmia Associates in Chattogram, his workers Rabbi Sumon, 32, and Kamruzzaman, 33, and two other accomplices of Mamun – Zahir Uddin, 37, and Khairul Islam Pias, 34, he said.

An individual named Shahidul Islam aka Mamun bought 150 MFS agent SIMs from the distributor and used them to control the transactions using the ‘Jet Robotic’ app, law enforcers said.

Whenever an expatriate worker from Dubai wanted to send money home, Mamun would collect foreign currency from them and then use the ‘Jet Robotic’ app’s agent accounts to send money to the expatriate’s desired number.

Though he conducted transactions of over Tk 4 billion in the past three months, none of that foreign currency came to Bangladesh, CID officials said.

Police also have seized Tk 2.85 million in cash, six mobile phones, 18 SIM cards, and various other pieces of evidence from them.

SA