Gambling on digital platforms has become rampant across the country amid the emergence of mobile financial services as an easy and primary tool to facilitate illicit transactions.

Law enforcement agencies have arrested many MFS agents and distribution house officials in recent years for acting as online gambling agents and facilitating illegal transactions.

Spokesperson and executive director of Bangladesh Bank, Md Mezbaul Haque, told New Age that it was becoming more and more difficult to tackle online gambling transactions since both personal and merchant accounts of MFS had been used for such transactions.

Law enforcement agencies’ investigators said that lapses in supervision from the management of MFS companies coupled with the abundance and easy access to online gambling websites and apps have worsened the situation.

The Criminal Investigation Department special police superintendent for the cyber policing centre, Rezaul Masud, said that they had arrested several dozen bKash and Nagad agents involved in online gambling transactions.

Thousands of college and university students got involved in gambling, dodging their parents and regulators.

Officials estimate that thousands of taka have been laundered abroad through online betting, putting the country’s economy in further trouble.

CID officer Rezaul explained that top MFS firms’ accounts are the primary tool for online gambling transactions.

Online gambling website links or apps contain one or more MFS agents’ account contacts.

A person needs to recharge money in his account from agents for gambling. No matter who wins or loses in betting, the money is deposited in the agents’ accounts, said the CID officer.

Many MFS agents either work as gambling agents or use their account contacts for transactions and ultimately send the money to the designated gambling agents.

The money is then converted into cryptocurrencies through a virtual platform like the Binance cryptocurrency exchange and laundered abroad, said Rezaul.

He said that local agents of gambling platforms and MFS firms take a minimum percentage as commission, but the bulk of the money is being siphoned to countries like Russia, China, Vietnam, and India.

CID has been investigating around 15 cases of online gambling and has arrested over 100 people for their involvement as gambling agents.

Most of the arrested are working both as MFS and gambling platform agents, said Rezaul.

He said that they had arrested a group of MFS agents who had daily transactions of around Tk 50 lakh from gambling. There have been several thousand such dishonest MFS agents.

The CID had earlier identified some 5,000 MFS agents involved in illegal transactions such as hundi trading and online gambling, which ultimately led to a huge amount of money laundering.

The CID officer said it was difficult to figure out what amount of money is being laundered abroad annually from digital platform gambling, but the amount should not be less than several thousand crore taka.

Rezaul said that the transactions for these gambling were being made through payment gateways. Incidents like money laundering are also taking place through it.

CID, earlier in mid-August, arrested four agents of the gambling platform ‘Betwinner’ for laundering crores of taka through their online betting.

Betwinner is primarily controlled and operated under the aliases ‘Super Admin; or ‘Master Admin’ from Russia.

These administrators employ managers to oversee global operations, recruiting experts as gambling agents.

These agents create an intermediary layer to facilitate monetary transactions, often involving dishonest mobile financial service agents, said CID officials.

The agents are also involved in financial dealings with another gambling site called ‘BetVisa,’ processing transactions of taka crores each month. In return, they receive a commission from the collected funds.

The central bank has repeatedly published advertisements and notices in the media warning people not to get involved in online betting, gambling, cryptocurrency trading, and multi-level marketing, citing that those are illegal and punishable offences.

In July, the High Court asked the chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission to block access to all visible online gambling websites so that gamblers could not use such platforms.

The court also asked the Bangladesh Bank governor to issue directives on all mobile financial service providers, including bKash, Nagad, and Rocket, so that gamblers could not make transactions using their payment gateways.

According to BTRC, the agency blocked 1,100 gambling websites, 48 smartphone apps, 1,552 Facebook pages, and 281 YouTube pages in 2022 and 2023.

BTRC spokesperson Zakir Hossain Khan said that they coordinate surveillance work with other law enforcement and monitoring agencies.

‘Soon any virtual gambling platform is detected, we block access from Bangladeshi cyberspace,’ he said.

Detective Branch of police additional deputy commissioner for cyber and special crime, Mohidul Islam, said that earlier betting advertisements were displayed on social media, mostly on Facebook and YouTube. Many of the advertisements on social media groups and pages just vanished after a certain time.

Earlier this year, DB arrested three people, including popular YouTuber Prottoy Heron, for promoting online gambling advertisements in their video content.

Though such social media promotions have reduced amid police raids, some private broadcasters and websites nowadays have been advertising gambling sites during sports events, said Mohidul.

The police’s cybercrime investigators feared that digital platform gambling might increase during the upcoming cricket World Cup in India as several hundred digital gambling platforms were actively targeting Bangladeshi netizens.

They identified gambling sites, including 1xBet, Melbet, Baji, Baji Sports, Betwinner, 10Cric, Bet365, and BJ Baji, among the most common gambling sites. The sites often change names and domains to dodge surveillance and blocking.

The police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit has recently launched an investigation against a gambling site operated from Russia.

‘We are conducting an investigation into the gambling platform, which can be accessed from both the website and smartphone apps. There are over 500 people participating in gambling on the digital platform,’ said Sharif Mohammad Farukuzzaman, an assistant commissioner of CTTC.

He said that they had identified around 20 agents of MFS firms involved in gambling money transactions.

The platform, which has been operating for around three months, has laundered around Tk one crore, a CTTC investigation found.

Head of corporate communications at bKash, Shamsuddin Haider Dalim, told New Age that as part of their regular compliance practice, agents’ transactions were continuously monitored, irrespective of time and situation.

‘Any suspicious transaction is reported to the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit through the Suspicious Transaction Report. Later, appropriate measures are taken as per the instructions of the regulatory body,’ he said.

Another MFS service provider, Nagad’s head of public communication, Zahidul Islam Sajal, said that they conduct surveillance on untimely and abnormal transactions and report them to the central bank.

He said that their vigilance work would be increased during the upcoming World Cup so that gambling transactions using their service could be curbed.

Central bank official Mezbaul said that the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit monitors suspicious transactions regularly. On average, 150–200 MFS accounts get terminated daily, he said, adding that illicit traders and gamblers open news accounts.

‘We often warn and urge stakeholders to ensure that MFS accounts are not used as a means of payment for online gambling, gaming, betting, and forex and cryptocurrency trading,’ he said.