7-banks and 2 money changers involved in money laundering

Staff Correspondent
Bankers buy foreign currency including dollars from travelers coming from abroad and sell them outside without showing it to the banking channel. Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Secretary Md. Mahbub Hossainsaid that the officials of seven banks and two money exchangers are involved in this money laundering.
He said these things to the journalists in a briefing in front of the head office of the commission yesterday.
The ACC Secretary said that some money exchange institutions including Janata Bank, Sonali Bank, Agrani Bank, Mutual Trust Bank, Pubali Bank, Prabasi Kalyan Bank, Jamuna Bank and Avia Money Exchange and Millennium Money Exchange were involved in illegal buying and selling of foreign currency and money laundering at the airport. Initial facts about involvement are available. According to the information received in this regard, the banking sector is being deprived of foreign currency worth approximately hundred crores of rupees every day.
ACC Secretary Md. Mahbub Hossain said that the valuable remittance cash and foreign currency brought by expatriate wage earners and air passengers to Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport should be deposited in the national reserve through the banking channel. But unscrupulous bankers use bank money
By doing so, they buy it themselves and sell it in the market without showing it collected in the banking channel, which is then smuggled abroad again through money laundering. Thus, the economic structure of the country is being damaged by smuggling the country’s valuable foreign currency.
Mahbub Hossain said that an enforcement operation was conducted under the leadership of Syed Nazrul Islam, deputy director of the commission, on Monday after receiving intelligence sources and specific written complaints. At the end of the operation, an organized ring of banks and money exchangers involved in foreign currency black marketers was found.
He said that usually thousands of expatriate workers and travelers from abroad come to Bangladesh through the airport every day. They make encashment in local currency or Bangladeshi taka at the foreign exchange booths and money exchangers at the airport. Foreign currency encashment vouchers are to be paid to the encasher as per laws, rules and regulations. But banks and money exchangers accept foreign currency directly without giving vouchers or fake vouchers and give money in exchange. They also issue unsigned, fake vouchers or encashment slips. Banks and money exchange institutions purchasing these foreign currencies do not include them in the authorized accounts of the institution as principal. As a result, these foreign currencies are not added to the central reserve. This creates a shortage or crisis of foreign currency in the country.
Mahbub Hossain said that those involved in this crime collected illegally purchased dollars, euros, riyals, ringgits, pounds, dinars and other foreign currencies and provided them to foreign currency smugglers, black market of foreign currency and illegal money laundering from Bangladesh to corrupt people who launder money abroad. is available
He said, during the operation, the ACC’s enforcement team collected primary information evidence, multiple fake vouchers and unsigned vouchers related to the purchase and sale of foreign currency without encashment slips of banks and money exchangers. Besides, the team conducting the operation has collected important information about the organizations and other persons involved in illegal foreign currency buying and selling, smuggling and black market. The suspects and the involved bank officials are under the surveillance of the commission officials. Information about their supporters and associates is also being collected on the orders of the commission. In this regard further action will be taken according to the commission law and rules