BFIJ blocks 22,000 MFS accounts for online gambling, hundi

Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) has suspended 21,725 accounts belonging to different Mobile Financial Services (MFS) for their alleged involvement in online gambling and hundi.

Deputy Chief Officer AFM Shahinul Islam of BFIU briefed reporters on the decision on Wednesday.

Most of these accounts are from Bkash, Nagad, and Rocket and MFS operators.

They have also been ordered not to engage in such transactions in future, he added.

BFIU collected information from 371 online gaming and betting transactions, 91 transactions related to online forex trading and 413 transactions related to cryptocurrency in nine months of this year.

These data are being analyzed and sent to the law enforcement agencies.

Besides, BFIU has sent a list of 814 websites, 159 apps, and 442 social media pages and links related to illegal hundi, gaming and betting to law enforcement agencies for action and investigation.

The anti-money laundering agency has also sent the details of 21 money changers and their 39 bank accounts to the Criminal Investigation Department of Police.

Meanwhile, after the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic, hundi, an illegal cross border transaction has increased which adversely affected remittance inflow.

Experts estimated that only 51 per cent of the remittances are coming to Bangladesh through formal and legal ways. The rest, 49 per cent are coming through hundi.

Last month, migrant workers sent home $1.59 billion, down 21.5 per cent year-on-year, and it has been the sharpest drop since April 2020, according to data from the Bangladesh Bank.