Bangladesh will strike deals with Malaysia and Singapore soon to recover through official channels the smuggled out money. It is widely alleged that a number of corrupt politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats siphoned off their ill-gotten wealth to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Abu Dhabi.

Sources said Bangladeshi intelligence agencies already visited a number of countries seeking information about the smuggled money and about the process of getting it back.

"Intelligence agencies have found that government level deals are necessary to get back the money," said a source.

Another source in the finance ministry said, "The authorities of Singapore told us that we will have to first sign a deal for getting the wealth information of any Bangladeshi who is accused of smuggling money to that country."

"Such a deal will have to be signed between the attorney general's office in Bangladesh and its counterpart in Singapore," the source said adding that once the deal is signed, Bangladesh will send a list of corruption suspects to that country seeking information about the suspects' bank accounts as well as any other investment they might have made in Singapore.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) is about to sign a deal with Malaysia's Financial Intelligence Unit, which operates under the country's central bank.

Finance ministry sources said the BB already prepared the draft of a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which will be placed at a meeting of the advisory council to the caretaker government.

The Malaysian authorities notified Bangladesh that if the siphoned off money is kept in banks it will be returned, but there will be no scope of recovering the money that was invested in businesses there.

Sources said similar deals will also be signed with other countries' central banks in phases.

Sources claimed that people like Tarique Rahman, Arafat Rahman Koko, Mosaddak Ali Falu, and Noor Ali siphoned off their illegally earned money to foreign countries.