Probe report submission deferred for 72nd time

A Dhaka court has directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police to submit the investigation report in the Bangladesh Bank reserve-heist case by July 31.
Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury passed the order when the investigation officer of the case, Additional Superintendent of Police Raihan Uddin Khan, failed to submit the report to the court on Monday.
With the latest one, CID has so far taken 72-time extensions to complete the investigation of the case filed in this incident.
Earlier on April 4, the same court fixed June 5, 2023, to submit the probe report.
On February 4, 2016, hackers broke into the central bank’s system and generated 70 fake payment orders to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, totalling $1.94 billion.
The NY Fed’s security system flagged the payment orders, but only five of them fell through, resulting in the release of $101 million.
At least $81 million was transferred to accounts in Manila-based RCBC, from where it disappeared into the casinos of the Philippines.
On March 15, 2016, Joint Director of the Accounts and Budgeting Department of Bangladesh Bank Zobayer Bin Huda filed a case with the Motijheel Police Station under the Money Laundering Prevention Act.
Subsequently, the Criminal Investigation Department of police was tasked with the investigation. But CID has already spent more than seven years probing the case without submitting the report.
On March 22, 2016, the then Metropolitan Magistrate Md Mahbubur Rahman allowed CID to conduct forensic tests on the hard disks of three Bangladesh Bank computers. The three hard disks were seized from the Bangladesh Bank after the heist occurred.
Md Shah Alam, General Register Officer (GRO) for Motijheel Police Station, said the CID has taken 72 dates to complete its probe in the case filed over the heist of $101 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February 2016.
So far, Bangladesh has retrieved $15 million from Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) and recovered another $20 million sent to a bank in Sri Lanka.
On February 1 last year, the Bangladesh Bank sued Rizal Bank in a US court to recover $66 million of the stolen fund.

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