3,228 financial crimes reported but govt drags feet on prosecution

Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) has so far identified 3,228 cases of money laundering and terror financing over the last five years but the government is seemingly dragging its feet on prosecuting the financial criminals.

Apart from those cases, BFIU, identified 174 cases involving scores of individuals and organizations allegedly involved with suspicious transactions.

BFIU handed documents related to those cases to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Criminal Investigation Department (CID), National Board of Revenue (NBR), Department of Narcotics Control and Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) to look into the matter.

According to a recent report of the Ministry of Finance, 572 cases of money laundering and terror financing were sent to the ACC over the period of 2015-20 to take legal action. Over the same period of time, BFIU sent 291 cases to Bangladesh police, 1664 cases to CID, 178 cases to NBR and 523 cases to other government agencies.

According to the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2012, ACC has been empowered to investigate the affairs of pocketing money through corruption and bribery while NBR looks into the matter of laundering the money through International trade while CID investigates other issues involving with money laundering.

Talking with the Business Post on Sunday, ACC Commissioner (Investigation) Mozammel Haque Khan said, ACC has already made contact with various countries to investigate into the money laundering issues involving Bangladeshi citizens.

"We have an intelligence unit to investigate money laundering cases and ensuring punishment for those involved with this crime," said Khan.

"We will bring the money launderer to book no matter in which country he or she has been living now," Khan added.

With few notable exceptions like brining back Tk 21 crore laundered by Arafat Rahman Coco from Singapore in 2012 and 2013, ACC made no significant progress in bringing back tens and thousands of crore taka siphoned off the country.

ACC said, bringing the laundered money back to the country is a complex and time-consuming matter.

People with the knowledge of preventing money laundering said, money laundering mostly takes place under the veil of international trade by showing inflated price of products than the actual market price aiming to divert the money from Bangladesh to elsewhere of the world.

A report of Global Financial Integrity which tracks money laundering reveals that every year Tk 68000 crore is laundered from Bangladesh under the false declaration of import and export.

sh/wi