Malaysia’s Second Home programme continues to magnetize more Bangladeshis raising the illicit fund transfer from the country.
A total of 3,746 Bangladeshis have so far invested in the Malaysia’s My Second Home (MM2H) programme, making Bangladesh the third largest investor in the scheme after China and Japan, according to statistics available with the official website of the scheme.
Politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and expatriates are among who enrolled in the scheme.
Sources said the number of Bangladeshis enrolling on the MM2H programme has been on the rise since 2011, meaning a rampant money laundering was taking place from the country to Malaysia under the scheme.
“Not a single investor from Bangladesh transferred fund to Malaysia for investment in the scheme using legal routes. Even they did seek permission from the government in this connection, as the law of the land does not allow such fund transfer,” a high official of Bangladesh Bank (BB) told The New Nation
yesterday on condition of anonymity.
He said most of the money invested in Malaysia was channelled through informal ways, as BB does not allow Bangladeshi citizens to take such big amounts abroad without its approval.
“The money for MM2H was sent through hundi or transferred to Malaysia from a third country,” he added.
When asked, he said, the central bank sought information of the Bangladeshis, who enrolled on the programme, from the Malaysian government but it declined to share the information.
From 2002 to August 2017, the Malaysian government has approved over 35,000 applications for its Malaysia residency programme
“Bangladeshis have invested in Malaysia’s second home programme through illicit fund transfer,” an official of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) told The New Nation.
He said ACC has identified 1,050 Bangladeshi citizens who have invested in Malaysia under its MM2H programme.
Earlier, in August 2014, the ACC started its investigation against the Bangladeshis who enrolled in the second home project. It, however, failed to collect information by sending Mutual Legal Assistance Requests (MLR) to Malaysia.
“The Malaysian authorities declined to provide information about the Bangladeshis saying it is out of the Malaysian government’s policy,” said the ACC officials.
“The second home scheme has become a big channel to siphon off money abroad. People are sending large amount of money to Malaysia to enroll in the scheme,” Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) executive director Iftekharuzzaman told The New Nation.
He said people are amassing wealth illegally in the country and they are siphoning off the money to participating in the Malaysia second home scheme. It’s the government’s responsibility to identify them and bring them to book.
