Mahabub Alam :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has decided to inquire into the alleged allegation that several thousand crore of taka had been laundered abroad in the past in the name of “The Malaysia My Second Home Programme”.
It is an international residency scheme enacted by the Government of Malaysia to allure foreigners to live in the country on a long-stay visa.
The NBR will try to identify the residence builders in Malaysia under the programme without permission from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) and other concerned organisations of the government. It will also try to bring them to the book.
NBR Chairman Golam Hossain said, the NBR would soon collect information through embassies of Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Qatar as to know who built houses there ignoring accurate process to evade tax.
The accused exploited the given opportunity of the project and laundered huge black money abroad, he added.
Earlier, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) began an investigation to dig out the money launderers in the name of the second home project.
It is reported, about Tk 4,986 crore had been laundered abroad in the last five years.
A three-member probe team led by ACC Deputy Director Mohammad Murshed Alam has already obtained relevant documents from Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue, intelligences and different money changing organisations in this connection.
The team is scrutinising the documents, said a team member seeking anonymity.
According to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, about 648 people applied for the second home project in the beginning of the present government’s second tenure.
About Tk 1,28,616 crore was laundered from Bangladesh to different countries between 2002 and 2011, as shown in the survey study of the Global Financial Integrity (GFI), an international organisation working about money laundering.
In case of money laundering, Bangladesh scored 47th among 150 developing countries i.e. the second position among the South Asian countries.
