Suspicious Transactions Reports (STRs) have increased by 64.57 percent in the fiscal year 2022-23, compared to the FY2021-22 in the country.
This information has been revealed in the annual report of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) for the fiscal year 2022-23. The BFIU was established as a wing of the BB in 2002 to protect money laundering and terror financing.
Masud Biswas, chief of BFIU, presented the report in a press conference in the conference hall of Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Tuesday.
He said that in the fiscal year 2022-23, there were 14106 suspicious transactions reports. The STRs increased by 64.57 percent or 5535 in one year. In the previous fiscal year 2021-22, this number was 8571 and in the fiscal year 2020-21, it was 5280.
The BFIU chief said that all the STRs are not true, after identifying any such transactions, the BFIU investigated the issue. Whenever they got evidence of any crime action was taken against them, he said.
Masud said that 80 percent of money laundering is happening through the banking system. If banks do not cooperate to stop such transactions, it isn't easy to control money laundering. Because once money is laundered, it cannot be brought back.
He said that the BFIU works to sign MoUs with 10 countries to bring back the smuggled money and cooperate to stop it.
In response to a question, the head of the BFIU said that 59 cases of money laundering have been registered based on the information of the BFIU. Among them, the ACC has filed 47 cases, CID 10, and NBR's special cell 2. These are not settled yet.
According to the BFIU report, banks have submitted a maximum of 12809 suspicious transaction reports in the entire fiscal year of 2022-23. The banks submitted 7999 reports in the previous fiscal year. Financial institutions submitted 121 reports. And the money exchange houses have submitted 900 reports.
BFIU Executive Director Rafiqul Islam, Director of Foreign Exchange and Policy Department of BB Sarwar Hossain, and Additional Director Kamal Hossain were present at the press conference.
