A few days after the collapse of the Awami League government in Bangladesh in August 2024, the then bank chief began hunting cats and mice due to the vast sums of money stuffed overseas by political and business elites.
The Bank of Bangladesh has established 11 specialized teams to track the assets of 11 strong families accused of washing billions of dollars in the UK, the UAE, the US, Malaysia and Singapore over the past decade.
The amount in question is incredible. Only one of the 11 families under investigation is suspected of moving $15 billion worth of funds from Bangladesh, and in one case, it has withdrawn nearly 90% of the deposits in a single bank and continues to collapse.
Ahsan Mansoor, a former IMF economist who was appointed governor of Bangladesh Bank a few days after the collapse of the government, worries that much of the money could disappear if it wasn’t found quickly enough. “We know that time is the essence. Erosion of the asset base can be possible,” he tells Al Jazeera.
Britain is his starting point. Mansoor is currently in consultation with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Bureau and law firms in London to track and seize an estimated $25 billion in laundry from Bangladesh.
“A lot of these families have assets… especially in London, so I think we’ll find a lot of assets here,” he says.
“Our whole purpose is at least [to] The UK is a favourite destination for stolen assets around the world and creates the recognition that Bangladesh is one of the countries that came to it,” he says.
“Moral Order”
One of the people interested is former land minister Seifutsman Choudhury. It was discovered by Al Jazeera’s Investigation Unit (I-Unit) and owns more than $500 million in property.
Last year, I-Unit revealed that Chowdhury’s family had purchased more than 360 luxury apartments in the UK.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission has frozen nearly 40 bank accounts and has put a travel ban on its central bank, but it is urgently trying to freeze overseas property, preventing it from being sold potentially.
Chowdhury claims he is a victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” against those associated with the previous government, saying his wealth was legally acquired.
While Bangladesh Bank is focusing on assets freezes, Mansoor hopes that authorities in the UK and elsewhere will investigate lawyers, bankers and real estate agents who have helped them move billions of dollars for “oligarch” families.
“The law often works with agents or operators, and often criminals to rehabilitate them in this jurisdiction.
A pardon for evidence?
Mansoor estimates it could take up to five years to regain control over the laundered funds, and admits progress has slowed as authorities tackle the scale and complexity of the task, but says the UK government is helping.
He is now considering offering plea bargains to those who helped move the money offshore in return for evidence against the Kingpins or in return for some form of pardon plan and reward to bring missing money back to Bangladesh.
Another important issue is that following the changes in US government, the complex task of tracking billions of dollars across multiple jurisdictions has become more challenging.
A team of US investigators, which was scheduled to start work in Bangladesh this year, was cancelled after President Donald Trump fed funds to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) early in his new term.
“They were supposed to be in Dhaka completely, but that had to be cancelled… Many of our experts were funded by USAID, but that was stopped,” Mansour said. “That’s a shame for us, but that’s true.”
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