Govt moves to bring back laundered money

FE Team | Published: September 20, 2012 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
The government has taken a move to bring back some money laundered abroad as the Attorney General received positive communications from some international agencies in this connection.
Following the Attorney General's green signal, the Finance Division Tuesday instructed the Bangladesh Bank (BB) through a letter to open several bank accounts with state-owned commercial banks to receive the money.
"The central bank is instructed to take prompt measures for opening necessary bank accounts with state-owned commercial banks to receive the laundered money from abroad," the letter signed by a senior assistant secretary of the Finance Division to the BB governor said.
The letter also instructed the central bank to take measures so that the money is instantly transferred to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) soon after depositing of it in the bank accounts.
Sources said a large amount of money has been laundered from the country by both political leaders and businessmen posing a serious threat to the country's economy.
Arafat Rahman Koko, youngest son of BNP chief Khaleda Zia, and Ismail Hossain Saimon, his business partner, siphoned off more than Tk 200 million to Singapore.
A court sentenced Koko and Saimon to six years in jail and also fined them. The court also asked the authorities concerned to take measures for bringing back the money from Singapore.
The Anti-corruption Commission earlier filed the case with the Kafrul Police Station on March 17, 2009.
Money laundering is deemed a financial crime, in which the details of illegal financial income are concealed and misrepresented. Money laundering has potentially devastating economic, security, and social consequences.
The government enacted earlier an anti-money laundering law to combat the financial crime in the country.
Bangladesh is also a founding member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) which is formed to ensure adoption, implementation and enforcement of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations for achieving international anti-money laundering standards in Asia and the Pacific countries.
In the FATF meeting, concluded on 16 February last, the money laundering watchdog placed Bangladesh on its grey-list.
The finance ministry already prepared a bill on National Strategy for Preventing Money Laundering and Combating Terror Financing, 2011-2013.