Passports of 14 people including bankers and businessmen who were involved have been blocked.
The government is taking a tough stance to prevent those involved in the Bangladesh Bank reserve theft from leaving the country. The passports of 14 officials and businessmen, including the governor of the central bank, Dr. Atiur Rahman, have been blocked in the case of reserve theft. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has written to the Immigration Police to prevent them from fleeing the country. However, Dr. Atiur Rahman left the country before his passport was blocked. This information has been obtained from sources related to the investigation.
It is known that hackers withdrew 101 million US dollars from the reserves of the Bangladesh Bank 9 years ago. The hackers were able to withdraw the country’s reserves due to negligence and carelessness in maintaining the security of the SWIFT system. In this case, the CID has held 14 senior officials and businessmen, including the governor of the central bank, responsible for negligence and carelessness in their duties. Some of these people allowed hackers to access the server room by keeping it open, while others provided internet connections. After that, they were also busy deleting the stolen information.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the CID are engaged in a tug-of-war over taking over the investigation of the case. The ACC has sent a letter to the CID to hand over the case to them as per the law. However, since it has been in charge of the investigation for a long time, the CID itself wants to file the chargesheet in the case. A meeting was also held between high-level officials of the Home Ministry in this regard.
The letter signed by ACC Director Ishita Boni on December 31 states that according to Section 21 of the Criminal Procedure Code, Section 2 of the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1947 and Section 110 of the Bank Companies Act of 1991, the concerned officials including the Governor of Bangladesh Bank are government employees. According to Section 20(1) of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act-2004, only the Anti-Corruption Commission can investigate the matter.
The concerned said that the ACC will investigate the case as per the crime and law. Now, even though the chargesheet of the CID case has been submitted to the court, the case will have to be investigated through the ACC in the end.
It has been learned that the CID has sent a letter to the Immigration Police to block the passports of 14 people in the Bangladesh Bank reserve theft case. This ban has been issued against them for questioning at any time for the sake of investigation. Our investigation agency and the Immigration Police have been able to confirm the names and identities of the 12 people banned from leaving the country.
They are – then the Governor of Bangladesh Bank Dr. Atiur Rahman, then the Director of Summit Alliance Port and Institute of Bankers Bangladesh Anisuddin Ahmed Khan alias Anis A Khan, then the Maintenance Engineer of Bangladesh Bank Dipankar Kumar Chowdhury, Deputy General Manager SM Rezaul Karim, Executive Director Subhankar Saha, the plaintiff in the case Zubair Bin Huda, then the Deputy Director (SWIFT Operator) GM Abdullah Salehin, Assistant Director Sheikh Riaz Uddin, Officer Eklas Uddin and the current Executive Director Mejbaul Haque. In addition, the identities of two other Bangladesh Bank officials on the passport block list could not be confirmed at this time.
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