NEWS reports say that money launderers have been coming up with new and inventive ways to go on with their financial crimes. This was detected by the Bangladesh Bank Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) in a drive aiming to decode the operational details of the laundering drives. The findings included that the central bank’s anti-money laundering arm depicted a total of ten such cases that took place last fiscal year.
According to reports, the case studies and typologies presented in the report would provide high-quality training materials for bankers and experts. It further clarified that if the BFIU officials perform their responsibilities properly, the siphoning-off of money will come down. Reports added that a gang of Bangladeshi human traffickers used mobile banking platform to collect ransom. People were taken with the promise of good jobs abroad and their passports were stolen by the criminals, which were then used to ask for ransom.
In another situation, one official of a government project and a businessman, both relatives, opened six accounts in two branches of a commercial bank in seven months, the accounts were opened in different names and they were shown to be students or housewives. The accounts did not have any significant transactions save for some IPO (initial public offering) investments but suddenly over a three-month period, large amounts were deposited in the six accounts through electronic fund transfer. This alerted the bank and they started to keep an eye on the accounts.
In the meantime, the government agency came to know that one of their officials illegally transferred the entire project fund of Tk 1.27 crore through electronic fund transfer by using various codes and the whole amount was deposited to the six accounts.
These were but a few instances where money was laundered and a total of 619 suspected transaction reports were sent to the BFIU last fiscal year, up from 420 sent in fiscal 2012-13 and 175 in fiscal 2011-12. Further data on the reports showed that in the fiscal year 2013-14, it identified 71 such predicate offences, among which the top 15 were corruption-related and 11 fraud-related.
It is quite apparent that inefficiency on the part of the government is to blame as they are not tackling the situation as they should. Even though criminals are finding new ways to launder money, government officials should be competent enough to find better ways to handle them and be one step ahead of them.
Besides, Bangladesh Bank as Central Bank, should gear up its anti-money laundering activities and up date its reporting, supervisory and monitoring gears because money laundering is primarily a banking operation through which the money is channeled or remitted out. Sluggishness or corruption at Bangladesh Bank end will only worsen the crisis.
