Some of the government officials are directly involved with money laundering. The Government knows the officials who are involved with this misdeed, but their names are not being disclosed.
The govt didn’t submit the names even in the High Court though direction was given to submit the names and other details of the money launderers in the court.
Now a question has been raised among the people as to why the government is so reluctant to reveal the names of the money launderers? Even the High Court has lamented that they couldn’t know the names of the money launderers.
Dr Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh, said, “There may be three factors. Firstly the govt may not have a comprehensive list secondly they may need to validate admit and finally perhaps some names are too sensitive to be disclosed because of their identity and status.”
It was seen in the past that some big money launderers had left the country before revealing the information about them or before taking any step by the law enforcing agencies or by the Anti-Corruption Commission. Proshanta Kumar Halder, popularly known as PK Halder, is one of them.
This person and some of his cohorts allegedly swindled billions from a number of banks and financial institutions and fled the country few months ago.
Even an arrest warrant was not issued for a long time against him nor did the ACC take any initiative for this. Recently a Dhaka Court issued a warrant after a High Court Bench had ordered to this.
Many others, including Crescent Group, Destiny Group, Hallmark Group officials, took advantage of the situation.
An influential minister of the government recently said that they had the information of money laundering by the government officials.
While talking to reporters at an interaction session with Dhaka Reporters’ Unity (DRU) in the capital Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen recently said he was surprised to see the number of government officials who siphoned off money and sent the amounts to Toronto, Canada, outnumbering politicians.
“It was initial information. We have to verify it,” he told reporters referring to information that the government has about 28 cases. Of the 28 cases, only four are linked to politicians while the rest to government officials and a few businesspeople.
“I thought that the number of politicians would be higher. I was surprised, though the information is not comprehensive,” said the minister.
Many government officials have houses in Toronto and their children are studying there. Such a situation is not only there in Canada, but also in Malaysia, he added.
Later a High Court Bench on November 22 sought all kinds of information of the persons who are involved in laundering money to the overseas including their names, addresses and legal steps taken against them.
But on December 17 the Anti-Corruption Commission had submitted a report in the court in which there was nothing new. That is why the High Court expressed its intense anger and further sought the information of the money launderers. The court asked the ACC to submit the detail by February 28 in 2021.
Attorney General AM Amin Uddin said the authorities didn’t have enough proof over money laundering by the government officials. So it was not possible for them to disclose anyone’s name without enough evidence.
“We have communicated with the authorities. We will submit the list when we will get it from the authorities”.
