B Mirror Desk: In order to assist in the recovery of assets that were stolen and laundered from Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, UK-based litigation firms have shown an interest in contributing up to $50 million.
According to a statement released on Wednesday by the Chief Adviser’s Office, they demonstrated the intention during Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr. Ahsan H. Mansur’s trip to London last month.
The money would be used to help the temporary administration’s efforts to reclaim the assets that were laundered out of the nation.
During his visit from March 17–21, the governor—who is also the leader of the Asset Recovery Taskforce—met with important public and private sector partners.
Since the UK is a major development partner of Bangladesh, a major financial centre as well as one of the largest destination countries for stolen assets, the trip was especially significant, says the statement.
It mentioned that the BB governor had individual meetings with three of the world’s largest litigation funders, who expressed the interest to invest and support Bangladesh’s asset recovery efforts in hiring law firms and investigators.
Collectively they suggested that “if they could gather sufficient evidence to pursue cases, they may invest up to $50mn in Bangladesh’s efforts to recover stolen assets”, according to the statement.
It said the governor invited them to come to Bangladesh at the earliest to review the cases that could be pursued with litigation funding.
The recovery of assets misappropriated during the 16 years of the Awami League regime, much of which was transferred illegally overseas, is an important policy priority for the interim government.
The two major sources of such stolen assets were the banking sector as well as corruption in the government. The former is reflected in a record level of non-performing loans (NPLs) of at least 20 per cent and rising.
According to the statement, the Chief Advisor held an Asset Recovery Review meeting on March 10 when he directed all the key agencies to accelerate their efforts in the major money laundering destination countries.
In an interview with Al Jazeera during his visit, Governor Dr. Mansur revealed that the Bangladesh Bank has established 11 specialized teams to trace the assets of 11 wealthy families who are alleged to have laundered billions of dollars to the US, Malaysia, Singapore, the UK, and the UAE over the previous ten years.
He added in the interview that the sums of money involved are astounding. Only one of the 11 families being investigated is suspected of transferring $15 billion in funds out of Bangladesh; in one instance, they took out almost 90% of the deposits in a single bank, bringing it dangerously close to failure.
