BB heist probe report to be made public Thursday

“We will make the full report public. It will be available on the website of Bank and Financial Institutions Division on the same day,” the minister told reporters at a briefing after the meeting with a team of ‘The Institution of Cost and Management Accountants Of Bangladesh”  at his secretariat office yesterday. On May 30, the government-formed investigation committee submitted the report on the Bangladesh Bank’s reserves heist to the finance minister. The three-member panel, led by former Bangladesh Bank governor Mohammed Farashuddin, was formed almost one month after it was learnt that the money was stolen by the hackers. The probe committee’s other members are the Finance Ministry’s additional Secretary Gokul Chand Das and Prof Mohammad Kaikobad of BUET’s Science and Engineering Department. Cyber criminals stole $101 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York in February this year. The incident came to light several days later. “The report will be posted on the website so that people can have easy access to the document and officials of the central bank will answer to the queries,” said Muhith. Earlier, he hinted that the report would be out before his scheduled departure for Washington on September 24 to attend the World Bank Group annual meeting. On February 4, hackers sent several orders through SWIFT to transfer $101 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A transfer of $20 million to Sri Lanka was halted but $81 million was parked in and beyond the Philippines. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported the theft at the end of February. It was later found that Bangladesh central bank officials were aware of the matter but had withheld the information for a month. Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman stepped down in the face of widespread criticism and intense pressure to quit for allegedly trying to cover up the incident. The committee was asked to check how the payment instructions were sent, and to whom, and what measures the central bank had taken to stop the theft, the reason behind concealing the incident, and whether there was any negligence on the part of central bank officials concerned.