As the government is highlighting efforts to bring back illicit money from the Sheikh Hasina regime and curb money laundering, police say online scam and gambling networks continue to transfer funds abroad with ease.
The remarks came from Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch (DB) after the arrest of nine people, including six Chinese nationals, over alleged links to online gambling, cyber fraud and illegal digital financial transactions.
At a press briefing at the DMP Media Centre on Thursday, Additional Commissioner Shafiqul Islam said such networks were expanding as it was “easy” to lure Bangladeshi users, while money collected through mobile financial services (MFS) such as bKash and Nagad was being sent abroad almost immediately.
The DB said it would hold discussions with lawmakers to address the issue.
Police said on Wednesday that nine people were arrested in Uttara and Turag in a joint operation by the DB Cyber and Special Crime (South) Division.
The arrestees are MA Jie, Zhang Jiahao, Liu Jinjie, Wang Shibo, Chang Tiantian, James Zhu, along with Bangladeshi nationals Kawsar Hossain, 24, Abdul Karim, 28, and Rokun Uddin, 40.
The platforms allegedly lured users with promises of quick profits before trapping them in fraud schemes.
The arrests followed raids in Uttara and Turag based on those findings.
Detectives seized three 64-port Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) SIM modules, one 256-port gateway, one 8-port gateway, around 280 SIM cards from different operators, along with laptops and smartphones.
Based on preliminary interrogation, police said the group collected MFS agent SIM cards registered under other people’s names from different parts of the country and used GSM gateway devices to keep hundreds of SIMs active simultaneously.
The DB said the SIMs were used to process gambling payments, fraud proceeds and illegal transactions.
The syndicate allegedly ran its own online betting portals while siphoning millions, particularly to China.
Replying to a question, DB chief Shafiqul said the money was reaching the syndicates through bKash and Nagad before being sent overseas immediately.
He called the practice “very harmful” for Bangladesh.
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