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Bangladesh bank given 10 days to explain hard boyz' accounts
Bangladesh Bank (BB) yesterday served a show-cause notice to the chief executive of Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd concerning the alleged irregularities in maintaining 'militant-linked' accounts and asked him to reply within 10 days.The central bank also sent the probe report of the BB inspection teams to the home ministry. The report was prepared after the teams examined a few cases of transactions in the bank suspecting they might have links to the militants. Following the arrest of militant kingpin Abdur Rahman and seizure of some banking documents from his busted Sylhet hideout, five BB teams probed three branches of Islami Bank, and one each of Rupali and Janata Bank. The probe teams found some lapses in banking norms and suspicious transactions with the Sylhet, Gazipur and Savar branches of Islami Bank, sources said. The show-cause notice was served under section 19 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act on the basis of the probe teams' report, a BB source said. The three branches of Islami Bank violated some of the regulations specified in the Anti-Money Laundering Act, specially the section called 'Know Your Customer (KYC)'. Despite the fact that there were some "dubious" transactions in its Sylhet branch, the Islami Bank did not report it to the central bank as demanded by law, the sources added. The BB is waiting for the Islami Bank chief executive's reply before taking action. If the allegation is proved, the bank may be fined Tk 10,000 to 1 lakh and the officials involved may be penalised, even suspended from their job, the source said. Executive President of the bank Abdur Rakib when contacted by The Daily Star last night said there has been no irregularities in opening the account, but there were something "unusual" in the way the account was operated. "We have already taken administrative actions against the offending staff," he said. About not informing the central bank about the suspicious transactions, Rakib said it happened due to the negligence of the branches concerned. "We do mass banking and have got thousands of accounts all over the country. It is not possible to centrally monitor all the irregularities that may have taken place in some branches," he explained. Besides, the law does not clearly explain which transaction is suspicious and which is not. As a result, the bankers are often in a dilemma regarding which transaction they should report and which they should not, Rakib observed. Sources said the probe report sent to the home ministry does not have any recommendation -- it only shows the findings. The account holders, account numbers and others who had done transactions with those accounts have been mentioned in the report. The BB source said the intelligence agencies will now investigate on the basis of the report. The BB has not yet found out any accounts and transactions that match the volume or kind of finance needed for countrywide militant activities. "Either we have not yet traced the account(s) or the transactions have been done through non-banking channels which are not in our jurisdiction," the source said. The BB had initiated the probe after police found some banking documents in the JMB chief's Sylhet hideout during his capture early this month. The seized documents are related to Rupali Bank's Pallabi Branch in Dhaka, Janata Bank's Brahmanbaria Branch and Islami Bank's Lal Dighirparh Branch in Sylhet. One Sabbir Ahmed opened the account with the Lal Dighirparh Branch, but it was operated by Saidur Rahman, former Habiganj district ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami. The account with Rupali Bank's Pallabi Branch is in the name of Saidur. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-03-15 |
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