Bigo Bangla bags Tk 1.08b by promoting obscenity, siphons off Tk 790m

Live streaming platform Bigo Bangla has allegedly earned a total of Tk 1.08 billion from the people in Bangladesh, through the promotion of obscenity on its mobile app.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Bangladesh Police has obtained necessary evidence in this regard and filed a case against the managing director of Bigo Bangla, Yao Jie, under the money laundering prevention act.

The Bigo Bangla boss has been subjected to an allegation of siphoning off Tk 790 million from Bangladesh.

Sohel Rana, the CID sub-inspector (SI) who filed the case, told Prothom Alo that he has dug into the allegations of money laundering against Bigo Live for more than a year. After collecting necessary evidence, he filed the lawsuit against the Bigo official on 25 September.

Apart from the MD, Bigo Bangla workers Najmul Haque, Arif Hossain, and a company named Monsoon Holding have been made defendants in the case.

The specialised intelligence wing of police rounded up the Bigo Bangla MD and four others in June last year, on allegation of spreading obscenity through live videos on the Bigo app.

Later, a case was filed against them under the Digital Security Act and Pornography Control Act with the Paltan police station in Dhaka.

The other accused in the case are Bigo Bangla employees Mustafa Saif Reza, Arif Hossain, Najmul Haque and Asma ul Husna Sejuti. All the accused have now been languishing in jail.

The CID came to know about the money laundering while investigating this case. Later, SI Sohel Rana started to investigate the issue seriously.

The major users of Bigo app are youth and expatriate Bangladeshi citizens. There are allegations of spreading sexually insinuating dialogues, acting, and gestures against the app.

There are two types of accounts in the app. One of them is Broadcaster which is mainly used by the young people. In this platform, the app promotes obscenity through live video streaming.

The users have to buy virtual currencies – diamond or bean – to participate in the live sessions. The purchase process can be completed through the conventional mobile financial services (MFS) in Bangladesh.

The mother company of Bigo Bangla is Singapore-based Bigo Technology, which began its journey in 2016.

According to the case documents, Bigo Bangla Limited was registered with the office of the registrar of the joint stock companies and firms on 2 October, 2019.

The memorandum of association says Bigo Bangla is a company that works with software development. Besides, it will sell digital products, in addition to manufacturing and trading of computer parts.

According to the case statement, Bigo Bangla Limited received money from shurjoMukhi Limited, a gateway of Monsoon Holdings Limited, to launder abroad.

Neither Monsoon Holdings nor shurjoMukhi Limited are registered with the Bangladesh Bank as a payment system operator.

The CID collected information of two bank accounts of Bigo Bangla. An amount of Tk 430 million was deposited in the two accounts between 15 January, 2020 and 18 July, 2021. Later, Tk 140 million was withdrawn from the accounts. Currently, the accounts have been frozen as per the court order.

The case statement also mentioned that Najmul Haque is the Bangladesh representative for selling virtual currency diamonds. The Bigo Bangla users used to purchase the currency from Najmul.

Later, Najmul deposited the proceeds to the bank accounts of Bigo Bangla while MD Yao Jie transferred the money to two other Chinese citizens – Jesica and Jahang.

In the following phase, the duo, who operate their own business in Bangladesh, deposited the money to the bank account of Bigo Technology in Singapore.

The police have found two bank accounts in the name of Bigo Bangla MD Yao Jie and 12 accounts in the name of Bigo Bangla worker Najmul Haque. Some Tk 430 million was deposited in the two bank accounts of Bigo MD.

Besides, another Tk 470 million was deposited in the bank accounts of Najmul. Of the amount, Tk 460 million was withdrawn and handed over to Yao Jie. The Bigo MD also received another Tk 170 million that was deposited in the bKash account of Najmul.

Another Tk 12.6 million was deposited in the bank account of Bigo Bangla worker Arif. He withdrew Tk 12.5 million and handed it over to the MD.

According to the case statement, Bigo Bangla's sharing app Bigo Live lured customers by showing sexually provocative dialogues and video clips through live streaming.

Later, Bigo Bangla collected Tk 1.08 billion from the customers in the name of selling virtual currency. Of the amount, Tk 290 million have been blocked (frozen) as per the court order while the remaining Tk 790 million has been smuggled abroad.