Staff Reporter:
Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr. Ahsan H. Mansur yesterday said that the United Kingdom (UK) is providing full support to Bangladesh in recovering laundered money linked to individuals associated with the regime of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“The government is in intensive discussion with UK to recover laundered money. Our communication with the UK is deep at the technical level. They are also supporting us in the preparation of documents,” he told a media briefing at his office, following his visit to London from June 10 to June 13 as part of the Chief Adviser’s delegation.
Mansur said Bangladesh had requested mutual legal assistance from several countries, including the UK.
“As part of the process, Bangladesh handed over information about the properties of launderers and loot-ed money. Based on the information, the foreign authorities take action,” he added.
“It (sending requests) is a continuous process. New requests are sent to them,” he said, responding to a question about whether the UK would freeze more properties of tycoons connected with the former re-gime.
Recently, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) ordered the freezing of o170 million worth of prop-erties belonging to former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed in the UK. This followed a o90 million asset freeze last month targeting Shayan Rahman and Shariar Rahman of Beximco Group.
“We are also in discussion with other countries,” said Mansur, expressing hope that a good amount of the money could be recovered.
He informed that international litigation firms are eager to invest between $50 million and $100 million to finance asset recovery.
A litigation funder is a third party that provides financial support to a litigant to cover legal costs associ-ated with a lawsuit, in exchange for a share of the potential financial recovery from the case.
The BB governor said Bangladesh would consider forming a fund as part of the initiative, alongside rais-ing money from global litigation firms.
“They (litigation firms) will get 15 percent to 20 percent of the recovered money. But the final amount will be decided based on the amount of recovery,” he added.
