Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam said teams from Bangladesh Bank, ACC, NBR, and CID are working to recover laundered money stashed abroad.
“It’s a vast and complex task that may take several years,” he told reporters at a briefing at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka on Thursday.
Recently, the NBR’s Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) traced around Tk40,000 crore worth of assets laundered to various countries.
Since January this year, investigations conducted in seven cities across five countries have uncovered this information, CIC Director General Ahsan Habib informed Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus.
Asked how much of the money can be recovered, the press secretary said the Tk40,000 crore worth of assets involves numerous legal procedures. “There are many legal complexities, so we cannot disclose the names or locations of the assets. However, some of these assets have been reported in British newspapers,” he said.
He explained that the recovery process begins by identifying the assets’ locations, followed by discussions with the authorities of those countries, and freezing the assets — some of which have already been frozen.
He emphasised that the government is actively working through diplomatic and legal channels to identify, freeze, and eventually repatriate the funds, a lengthy and meticulous process that involves deploying teams abroad and coordinating with local authorities.
