Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Bangladesh Police finally submitted a draft chargesheet in the sensational Bangladesh Bank's reserve-heist case to the Attorney- General Office, seeking its legal opinion.
In the drafted charge sheet, the criminal investigation agency officially named 64 suspects, including Bangladeshi and foreign individuals and institutions, in the country's largest ever financial heist that occurred more than 10 years ago.
The agency framed charges against 10 Bangladeshi nationals, including former Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor Dr Atiur Rahman, in connection with the heist.
Among other nine Bangladeshis, eight are former and current BB officials - KM Abdul Wadud, Subhankar Saha, Rezaul Karim, Zubair Bin Huda, AFM Asaduzzaman, Mezbaul Haque, Abul Kashem, and Md Sultan Masud Ahmed. The rest is Anis A Khan, a former chairman of the Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB).
Of the BB officials, Zubair Bin Huda is still serving the central bank as an additional director. Huda filed a case with Motijhel Police Station after 39 days of heist on behalf of the central bank. Others went to retirement.
The foreigners include 36 from the Philippines, eight from Sri Lanka, four from India, three from China, two from North Korea, and one from Japan.
Following a 10-year investigation, the nearly 10,000-page charge sheet has been sent to the Attorney General for legal review.
On February 5, 2016, hackers stole $101 million from Bangladesh Bank's reserves held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Unknown hackers reportedly sent fraudulent instructions through the SWIFT payment system to siphon off the funds.
Of that amount, an estimated $81 million was transferred to the casinos in the Philippines.
The remaining $20 million that was successfully wired to Sri Lanka during the cyber heist was recovered in full. The funds were returned because hackers made a typo (spelling 'Foundation' as 'Fundation' or 'Fandation') in the SWIFT transfer request. This error triggered routing banks to halt the transaction before the money could fully disappear.
A case was filed by Bangladesh Bank 39 days after the incident under the Money Laundering Prevention Act at Motijheel Police Station. CID has led the investigation from the outset.
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