BB joins global network to battle money laundering

Financial Intelligence Unit is now part of Egmont Group; Governor Atiur Rahman keeps mum on BASIC Bank scam

Atiur Rahman, central bank governor, announces Bangladesh’s membership of Egmont Group, a global network of financial intelligence units, from a press conference at the BB headquarters yesterday. Photo: BB

Bangladesh has become a member of Egmont Group, a global network of financial intelligence units, which will help the country combat cross-border money laundering and potential terror financing.
“From now, Bangladesh will have access to sensitive information on the Egmont Group website,” Atiur Rahman, governor of Bangladesh Bank, said at a media briefing at its headquarters yesterday.
The BB’s Financial Intelligence Unit will act as the national centre for all work.
Another major benefit that Bangladesh will get from the membership is training from international experts and sharing of expertise among members, Rahman said.
Bangladesh sought membership in 2008 and received it at Egmont’s meeting held on Wednesday in Toronto, Canada. Malaysia and Thailand sponsored Bangladesh for the membership.
Established in 1995 at the Egmont Arenberg Palace in Brussels, the group is an informal organisation of financial intelligence units from 131 member countries. The group operates a global dragnet against money laundering and other financial frauds as part of the campaign against illegal narcotics, activities of organised crime and terror financing.
Increasingly, corruption related crimes appear in the statistics of FIUs and of law enforcement agencies, as a major category of predicate offences.
The US Department of State 2011 Money Laundering and Financial Crime Report names corruption as a ‘major predicate offence’ or as a serious obstacle to fighting money laundering, a document on the Egmont Group website shows.
“We’ll now exchange information among the member countries to detect money laundering and terror financing,” Rahman said.
Thanks to the membership, Bangladesh will be able to detect money laundering only through the banking channel, said Mahfuzur Rahman, executive director and spokesperson for BB.
Reporters at yesterday’s media briefing raised questions on whether the membership could detect other scams in the banking sector, like state-run Sonali Bank and BASIC Bank being involved in swindling thousands of crores of taka and eventual money laundering inside the country.
Senior officials, including the governor, kept mum on the irregularities at BASIC Bank involving around Tk 4,500 crore. At one stage, the governor, along with his colleagues, left the conference room, without taking the questions.

Source: The Daily Star