Forex smugglers now enjoy heyday in BD

Local and international syndicates are using country's airways for the smuggling of foreign currencies and carrying out underworld financial deals which have crossed all previous records in recent times, official sources say.
Different intelligence agencies can trace and catch hardly 5.0 per cent of the total foreign currencies that flow through the airports into different neighbouring countries.
Even this small haul by the customs and the customs intelligence and investigation directorate (CIID) from the country's three international airports in the last financial year turned out to be a record amount of Tk 298 million worth of foreign currencies.
The seizures included 1.27 million US dollars, Euro 18940, Saudi Arabian Riyal 6.75 million, Indian Rupee 991 million, Singaporean dollar 1.24 million, Qatari Riyal 4.00 million, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Dirham 1.65 million.
Law-enforcers suspect a section of smugglers has chosen Bangladesh as transit for smuggling foreign currencies to neighbouring and other countries taking advantage of its geographical location.
The seizure of smuggled foreign currencies jumped 30 times in the 2013-14 fiscal year. The foreign currencies were seized from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in Dhaka, Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong (SAIA) and Osmani International Airport in Sylhet.
In the fiscal year 2012-13, the amount was only Tk 7.2 million.
In recent times, the currency hauls at the airports have increased, which means the smuggling has been taking place at an alarming rate.
Officials of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Police said the foreign currencies are entering through airways and being smuggled out to several countries including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
According to them, most of the smugglers are using the routes from Dubai, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to those neighbouring countries via Bangladesh.
The Detective Branch (DB) and the CID of Police in recent times have traced a number of local and international groups and strong syndicates involved in foreign- currency smuggling, which, incidentally, runs side by side gold smuggling.
Sheikh Nazmul Alam, Deputy Commissioner of DB of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) North Zone, said: "In recent times, a large number of foreign smugglers, engaged in smuggling foreign currencies, are entering the country by air routes. As a result, currency smuggling has increased significantly."
Large amounts of foreign currencies are being smuggled out but law-enforcers could not identify the ringleaders of the rackets, he said. Always the persons who carried the currencies were arrested. They work on daily payments.
He said they are recovering record numbers of foreign currencies but for lack of hard evidence the smugglers are remaining out of punishment. Some of them are going to jails, but lack of evidence may facilitate their release from jail sooner or later.
"The foreign-currency smugglers are using Bangladesh as a transit point, and it has increased in recent times," Moinul Khan, director-general of CID, told The Financial Express (FE).
He said the smuggling syndicates are using Bangladesh as a transit point to smuggle the foreign currencies to several countries of Asia.
He mentioned that recently the members of CID detained five Bangladeshi nationals and recovered foreign currencies worth Tk 8.6 million from their possession at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
"In recent times, CID investigation team has found large numbers of syndicates engaged in financial crimes as money laundering and gold and foreign currency smuggling," said Ashraful Islam, special superintendent of the CID.
He said the smuggled currencies are coming from several sources, including hundi business, payment of price for smuggled gold, black money transfer and the like.
Mr Islam said compared to other foreign currencies they are observing that the seizure of Indian rupees has increased manifold.
He said besides air routes, the land and water ports are also being used for financial crimes. He named Benapole in Jessore, Tamabil in Sylhet, Hili in Dinajpur and Shyamnagar in Satkhira as the conduits.