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FINANCIAL CRIMES

Govt to seek US help to form force

REJAUL KARIM BYRON
The government will seek US technical and training assistance in forming a financial intelligence unit (FIU) and an inter-agency strike force to fight money laundering and other financial crimes, including fund flow for terrorist activities.
The finance ministry last month asked the foreign ministry to take necessary steps in this regard.
The FIU and the strike force will be funded under UN allocation for counter terrorism. As per a recommendation by the American government three years ago, the FIU will collect, analyse and disseminate information concerning suspicious financial transactions in cooperation with domestic and internationallaw enforcement agencies.
With US technical assistance, the government will review and amend the laws on money laundering and draft laws on counter terrorism.
The central bank officials will be trained on investigation techniques and to spot and analyse suspicious
transactions.
Magistrates or judges and prosecution lawyers of money laundering courts and officials of intelligence agencies will also be trained. The finance division officials will be trained on capacity building.
Operating under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA), the strike force will be controlled by the attorney general. It will include representatives of Bangladesh Bank (BB), Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), CID, and Attorney General's Office.
The force will have expertise to investigate money laundering cases and it will use the BB as a source of information, data and expertise. Members of the force will be carefully selected and they will be paid higher salary to prevent corruption among them.
The government last year took these decisions and later assigned the law ministry to suggest the structure of the strike force and the BB to recommend how the FIU will be formed.
"We have drafted a report on the proposed FIU suggesting that the central bank's Anti-Money Laundering Department can be converted into the FIU," said a BB high official. "When approved by the governor, we will send the report to the finance ministry."
Officials from the ACC and home and law ministries may be deputed to the FIU to run it, he said.
Meanwhile, the law ministry suggested to the finance ministry an amendment to the AMLA to create legal provisions for the striking force. Accordingly, the BB is now drafting an amendment and will finalise it soon, BB officials said.
These issues came up in the wake of various recommendations of the US government's Financial Sector Assessment Team that visited Dhaka in 2002 as part of the American drive to stop fund flow to international terrorist groups. The government in April last year in principle decided to form the FIU and the strike force.