The Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor has accused tycoons linked
to the former administration of Sheikh Hasina of collaborating with members of
the country's military intelligence agency to siphon $17 billion from the
banking sector during her rule.
Mansur estimated that Tk 2 lakh crore, or $16.7 billion, was
moved out of Bangladesh after these takeovers through methods such as loans
issued to the new shareholders and inflated import invoices.
"This is the largest, most significant bank robbery by
any international standard," he said.
"It
hasn't happened on this scale anywhere else, and it was state-sponsored. This
couldn't have occurred without intelligence officers pressuring [former bank
CEOs]."
The governor specifically
named Mohammed Saiful Alam, founder and chairman of the industrial conglomerate
S Alam Group, and his associates, alleging they had "siphoned off" at
least $10 billion from the banking system after taking control of banks with
DGFI support.
"Every day, they were
granting loans to themselves," Mansur noted in the interview.
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