Tk 100cr siphoned off through Bigo Live, Likee streaming apps

GBNEWS24 DESK//

Five persons including a foreign national have been arrested on charge of laundering over Taka 100 crore from Bangladesh through live streaming apps like ‘Likee’ and ‘Bigo Live.’

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have arrested them from different parts of the capital.

The arrested are Mostofa Saif Reza, Arif Hossain, SM Nazmul Huque and Asma-ul-Husna Senjuti.

However, the name and address of the arrested foreign national could not be known.

Eight mobile phones, five laptops, a private car and bank’s cheque books were seized from the arrested persons.

It was disclosed by CID’s deputy inspector general (Cyber Wing) Jamil Ahmed at a press conference held in the capital on Sunday.

Jamil Ahmed said the arrested foreign national is directly involved with ‘Likee’ and ‘Bogo Live.’ Bangladesh national Mostofa Saif Reza is ‘Bigo Live’s’ Bangladesh admin. Arif Hossain used to involve in connecting Bangladeshi girls with ‘Bigo Live’ offering monthly salaries. SM Nazmul Huque is one of the Bangladeshi agent of selling virtual currency ‘Diamond’, while Asma-ul-Husna Senjuti is the chief admin of Bigo Live. The admins used to receive Tk 1 lakh per month as salary.

Receiving a complain that a gang was siphoning off huge amount of money from Bangladesh by selling digital coin ‘Diamond’ in the ‘Likee’ and ‘Bogo Live’ apps, the cyber crime unit of CID started investigating the complain.

“At one stage, we have learnt that young boys and girls, and expatriate Bangladeshis are involved in live streaming of videos through the ‘Likee’ and ‘Bigo Live’ apps. The majority of the live-streamed contents are full of vulgarity and youths and Bangladeshi expatriates are the targets of the racket,” Jamil said.

There are two types of ID on ‘Bigo Live’. One is Broadcaster ID and the other is ‘Supporter ID’ or ‘Sender ID.’ Teens used to stream their vulgar videos live using the ‘Broadcaster ID’. Through these video streaming, various kinds of vulgar videos were uploaded to the apps,” he said.