The High Court (HC) has given Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) three months to sign mutual legal assistance (MLA) pacts with 10 countries for obtaining information and proof required to recover black money stashed abroad.
A HC bench of justices Nazr ul Islam Talukder and Khijir Hayat passed the order on Wednesday.
During the trial, deputy attorney general AKM Amin Uddin Manik appeared for BFIU, while advocate Khurshid Alam Khan represented the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
In a report submitted to the court on Tuesday, BFIU said that they had advised the Financial Institutions Division (FID) to sign MLA agreements with at least 10 countries to get necessary help in bringing back laundered money from abroad.
These countries are the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Thailand and Hong Kong (China).
The report also said that "BFIU has asked Bangladesh Bank (BB) to recruit manpower for the proposed ‘Research Cell’ which will help in identifying money launderers and recovering the money".
According to the report, the recruitment process is currently ongoing.
The report added that the sixth meeting of the taskforce, led by the attorney general and formed to recover laundered money, took place on January 3, 2022.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the Home Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, FID, ACC, BFIU and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Bangladesh Police.
It was decided at the meeting that urgent steps needed to be taken to identify the launderers and bring back black money stashed in foreign banks.
