A fresh move is underway to strengthen coordination among all the agencies concerned to help check capital flight from the country, officials said Thursday.
According to them, the National Coordination Committee on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism in its next meeting is expected to discuss as to how well-coordinated efforts can be made for preventing money laundering.
"We're expecting that different issues, including strengthening of further coordination among agencies and carrying out prompt and thorough investigation regarding capital flight, will be discussed in the meeting," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE.
He also said the main agenda of the meeting would be to establish an effective coordination among agencies engaged in the anti-money laundering activities.
Besides, the meeting is expected to review whether there are inconsistencies in the existing Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012, for effective enforcement of the Act, the BB official added.
The latest move came following recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the ministry of finance.
The standing committee at its meeting Wednesday suggested necessary measures to strengthen the capacity of the BB, the ACC, the NBR and other agencies to prevent the money laundering.
The committee also stressed on enhancing coordination among different government machineries and law enforcing agencies for curbing money laundering.
Besides, the committee recommended initiating legal actions against Bangladeshi citizens including industrialists and businessmen who have illegal homes and money abroad by formulating a list through the Financial Intelligence Unit of the central bank.
Chairman of the Standing Committee M Abdur Razzaque told the meeting that a huge amount of money is being transferred outside the country illegally as a large number of Bangladeshis are building second homes in eight to ten countries, according to informed sources.
Keeping this in view, he suggested necessary steps to identify the persons involved in money laundering activities and take punitive action against them.
The central bank has already introduced an online system through installing 'goAML' software for collection of both suspicious transaction report (STR) and cash transaction report (CTR) from the banks and the financial institutions.
The goAML is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)'s standard software system available for financial intelligence units to check terrorist financing and money laundering.
"We're now collecting such information from the commercial banks using digital connectivity," another BB official said.
The central bank is now working to collect STR from the non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) shortly.
"We're now exchanging money laundering-related information with 19 agencies including the National Board of Revenue (NBR), the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Criminal Investigation Department of police," the central banker noted.
