Bangladeshis figure prominently in discourses on illegal transfer of money amounting to as high as 7.5 billion dollars a year through over-invoicing of imports and under-invoicing of exports. Other methods of money laundering through the use of ‘hundis’ (unofficial cheques) are also employed to siphon off money to build luxurious homes in Canada, Malaysia, Australia, UK as well as the USA. Possessors of illegal money also buy citizenships in some countries by making specified amounts of investments. But these developed countries, despite their being champions of transparency and accountability, seldom check against the legality of the money that is transferred and this gives the dishonest people covers to launder money to their preferred destinations.
Media is abuzz with reports on the setting up of ‘Begum Para’ for wives of rich Bangladeshis in Toronto, Canada, and ‘second homes’ in Malaysia and abodes in USA and UK by plundering money from Bangladesh in the form of defaulting bank loans, defrauding money of ordinary investors in businesses like e-commerce platforms. According to reports, the Washington-based Global Financial Integrity has found that 61.5 billion dollars were siphoned out of Bangladesh: between 2005 and 2014. GFI has reported an annual laundering of 7.5 billion by abusing international trade transactions. As against this, Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) has estimated the laundering of 3.1 billion dollars per annum.
Not only this, Bangladeshis also keep money in secret Swiss Bank accounts. Although a recent initiative taken by the Swiss National Bank to disclose the foreign deposits in their Banks every year has become a disincentive to deposit money there, 2020 figures show deposits of 563 million Swiss Francs, or Taka 5,215 crore.
According to another report, a discrepancy has been found in grain export receipts in Canada and grain import payments made to that country from Bangladesh. While Canada reported grain export receipts of 1.08 billion dollars stolen public money in 2019, our Bangladesh Bank figures show grain import payment of 500 million dollars to Canada. The question arises where has the remainder gone. In a recently published report on Financial Secrecy Index for 2020 Bangladesh has scored the 54th position out of 133 countries. Another interesting aspect of the money laundering episode is that government officials have outnumbered politicians in terms of money laundering reported recently. Out of 28 cases of siphoning off money to Toronto, Canada, only four were politicians and the rest officials plus some businessmen.
Billions of dollars of such stolen money is enjoyed by thieves in US, Canada, Abu Dhabi and such other countries. It is an international crime and these criminals must not be given shelter for avoiding court case in Bangladesh. Canada has been the most accommodating. This must stop. Our own government being corrupt most of them escape justice from foreign countries. These thieves are government’s own men, the government is also protecting them. We want to say Bangladesh should demand return of the illegally transferred money from the developed countries. To do this however it should be remembered they enjoy government protection. We seek justice from those countries. So that the thieves know stealing public money for personal luxury is not safe anywhere.
