Bangladesh

Legal proceedings underway to recover laundered money: Finance Minister Finance Minister
Photo: Collected Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal

Legal proceedings underway to recover laundered money: Finance Minister

Bangladesh Live News | @banglalivenews | 11 Jan 2023, 11:13 pm

Dhaka, Jan 11: Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said that the legal process to recover the money is going on based on specific information. Due to various procedures and legal complexities, recovery of money takes a long time. The minister also mentioned that determining the amount of money laundering is very difficult.

The Finance Minister said this in response to a question by Jatiya Party's Masiur Rahman Ranga during the Jatiya Sangsad's question and answer session on Tuesday (January 10).

Speaker Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury chaired the question and answer table.

Regarding the determination of the amount of money laundering, the Finance Minister said, various development organizations, research organizations estimate the amount of money laundering using various methodologies, the accuracy of which is not claimed by those organizations. The reports of these agencies show conflicting information about the amount of money being laundered from Bangladesh. In fact, determining the amount of money laundering is very difficult. But regardless of the scale or amount of money laundering out of the country, the government is determined to stop the possible sources of money laundering as well as prevent money laundering and bring the money back to Bangladesh. For this purpose, all government agencies are working together.

Expressing the hope that illegal money laundering will be reduced to a large extent by the government's actions, Mustafa Kamal said, legal activities to recover the money laundering are ongoing based on some specific information about money laundering from Bangladesh. In this regard, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) has been collecting information from foreign financial intelligence agencies about smugglers or smuggled money and providing it to various investigating agencies including Anti-Corruption Commission, CID, National Board of Revenue. Several cases related to buying flats or houses abroad (Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, United Kingdom, USA, Canada etc.) or money laundering in any other manner are currently under investigation by the ACC. Besides, several cases related to trafficking filed by CID are ongoing. On the other hand, the inter-agency task force under the leadership of the Attorney General is working to recover the money smuggled abroad in order to bring the money back to Bangladesh. In addition, the Ministry of Home Affairs has been designated as the central authority to provide mutual assistance in matters related to crime in order to ensure mutual legal cooperation with various countries.

In response to the question of Begum Lutfun Nesa Khan of the Workers' Party, pointing out that Bangladesh's foreign debt as a percentage of GDP is far below the risk limit, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said that the economy of Bangladesh is at a risk-free and satisfactory level in terms of foreign debt.