Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit and Customs Intelligence Unit under National Board of Revenue (NBR) will bolster their vigilance to check financial fraud and cybercrimes which have gone up since the coronavirus pandemic hit the nation. The rise in these crimes is due to limited economic activity and subsequent laxation in monitoring promted by the pandemic.
Besides, BFIU will also look for those who deposited money in Swiss banks through communication with the Swiss State Bank.
The decisions were made at an anti-money laundering working group meeting on Thursday, presided over by Md Ashadul Islam, Senior Secretary of Financial Institutions Division (FID).
An official who attended the meeting said, “We will take legal action against those who deposited illegal money in Swiss banks with the information provided by Switzerland’s state bank.”
Those illegal money will be returned to Bangladesh under international law, the officials also said.
Meanwhile, according to an FID report the amount of money deposited by Bangladeshis in Swiss banks has recently increased, which indicates that money is being smuggled out of the country.
From February to July, the country's financial activities were limited due to the coronavirus pandemic. During this period, for various reasons, there were some relaxations in the observation and monitoring by the regulatory bodies.
As a result, money laundering, financial fraud, and cybercrimes have risen sharply. It is believed that a large amount of money has been siphoned off from the country during this time.
Earlier, steps were taken to recover the money smuggled out at different times including the money stolen from Bangladesh Bank reserve and those deposited in the Swiss banks.
FID has prepared a report compiling the data of the monitoring reports of various intelligence agencies, reviewing cases related to money laundering, existing legal and institutional frameworks, various complexities of information exchanging information and laws and regulations of different countries.
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