Economic Reporter :
Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday said the cause of the recent fire incident in Bangladesh Bank (BB) headquarters was an electric short circuit.
“No important damage has been caused in the fire incident,” he told journalists after a meeting on ‘recovery of BB reserve heist money’ with BB officials at the finance ministry.
The fire originated on the 13th floor of central bank at around 9 pm on March 23. Twelve firefighting teams doused the blaze within an hour with no reports of casualties. The fire gutted parts of the Foreign Exchange Policy Department.
Responding to a question, Muhith hoped that the entire reserve heist money could be recovered from the Philippines, saying the authorities concerned in the Philippine is providing supports to return the stolen money. Hackers had stolen a total $101 million from Bangladesh’s account at the New York Fed in February, 2016.
BB brought back approximately $15.25 million from the Philippines and $20 million from Sri Lanka. Of the amount, $81 million was transferred to four accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in Manila and another $20 million to a bank in Sri Lanka. But the transferring of $20 million to Sri Lanka was failed because of a spelling error by the hackers.
