Gazi Anowarul Hoque :
Bangladesh may again fall in the list of vulnerable nations for money-laundering and terror financing mainly due to recent terror attacks in the country and regulatory lapses, feared Bangladesh Bank (BB) officials.
BB officials said Bangladesh may be listed for the risky nation in the next meeting of Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) to be held on in the USA in September next.
The scheduled meeting of the APG was cancelled from 23rd to 28th July in Bangladesh over security concern.
BB sources said the next meeting of APG will evaluate Bangladesh’s regulatory and functional capabilities in tackling the recent terrorist threats and records in preventing money laundering.
They said the forthcoming evaluation by the APG could place Bangladesh further in the ‘grey list’ of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) after recent travel alert issued by a number of western countries and regulatory lapses.
“There may be good chance for us to submit our progress to combating money laundering and terrorist financing but the cancellation of the meeting pushed us to tight corner”, Deb Prasad Debnath, General Manager of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), told The New Nation on Sunday.
He however claimed that Bangladesh has already made tremendous progress in enacting adequate rules and regulations on combating terrorist financing and money laundering as proposed by FATF and APG.
‘It’s a bad time for us being evaluated by APG now, as it has taken the country’s recent terror attacks seriously,” another BB official, requesting anonymity, told The New Nation yesterday.
Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem, additional research director of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) said, militancy is a global problem. It would be unfortunate if Bangladesh will come under black list for terror attacks.
Bangladesh in 2014 got out of the grey list, the list of countries having bad records on money laundering, on which the country was placed in 2008 by FATF.
In October 2010, the task force recommended 28 time-bound actions Bangladesh needed to bring its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures to international standards.
The Asia Pacific Group is an affiliate body of the FATF and mainly maintains the role of observer in the Asia and Pacific region.
Recently, a cabinet meeting approved amendment of anti-money laundering act-2012, empowering police department and national board of revenue with money laundering investigation authorities, along with anti-corruption commission.
The FATF and APG have long been pressing the government to accelerate investigations of money laundering cases and improving ACC’s poor capacity to handle the issue promptly and efficiently.
Bangladesh may again fall in the list of vulnerable nations for money-laundering and terror financing mainly due to recent terror attacks in the country and regulatory lapses, feared Bangladesh Bank (BB) officials.
BB officials said Bangladesh may be listed for the risky nation in the next meeting of Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) to be held on in the USA in September next.
The scheduled meeting of the APG was cancelled from 23rd to 28th July in Bangladesh over security concern.
BB sources said the next meeting of APG will evaluate Bangladesh’s regulatory and functional capabilities in tackling the recent terrorist threats and records in preventing money laundering.
They said the forthcoming evaluation by the APG could place Bangladesh further in the ‘grey list’ of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) after recent travel alert issued by a number of western countries and regulatory lapses.
“There may be good chance for us to submit our progress to combating money laundering and terrorist financing but the cancellation of the meeting pushed us to tight corner”, Deb Prasad Debnath, General Manager of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), told The New Nation on Sunday.
He however claimed that Bangladesh has already made tremendous progress in enacting adequate rules and regulations on combating terrorist financing and money laundering as proposed by FATF and APG.
‘It’s a bad time for us being evaluated by APG now, as it has taken the country’s recent terror attacks seriously,” another BB official, requesting anonymity, told The New Nation yesterday.
Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem, additional research director of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) said, militancy is a global problem. It would be unfortunate if Bangladesh will come under black list for terror attacks.
Bangladesh in 2014 got out of the grey list, the list of countries having bad records on money laundering, on which the country was placed in 2008 by FATF.
In October 2010, the task force recommended 28 time-bound actions Bangladesh needed to bring its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures to international standards.
The Asia Pacific Group is an affiliate body of the FATF and mainly maintains the role of observer in the Asia and Pacific region.
Recently, a cabinet meeting approved amendment of anti-money laundering act-2012, empowering police department and national board of revenue with money laundering investigation authorities, along with anti-corruption commission.
The FATF and APG have long been pressing the government to accelerate investigations of money laundering cases and improving ACC’s poor capacity to handle the issue promptly and efficiently.
