Finance wants CID cell till framing of new law

Finance ministry acting on Bangladesh Bank's advice has suggested the home ministry to form a temporary Criminal Investigation Department (CID) cell to deal with the money laundering cases now lying idle since the dissolution of the Bureau of Anti-Corruption (Bac).

After invalidating the Anti-Money Laundering Law 2002, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) last month worked out a draft of an "anti-money laundering and terrorist financing law" and sent it to the finance ministry. In the draft, the BB also recommended to task a CID cell with handling the money laundering cases until a regular body is formed for the purpose.

Forty-one money laundering cases have been pending since the formation of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in November 2004, dissolving the Bac, as the ACC does not have the authority to deal with them.

In May this year, the ACC sent all the documents including case histories and investigation reports to the BB.

Again, since all legal procedures of these pending cases were halted, the BB's anti-money laundering drive also got stuck.

Sources said although the BB has its own taskforce to deal with the money laundering cases and the banks are supposed to send cases related to money laundering to the taskforce, it has received no such cases in the last two or three months.

The sources said the BB discussed the matter with the CID and the secret agency reportedly agreed to work on it.

The new draft law proposed by the BB includes formation of an enforcement and prosecution bureau under the office of the attorney general.

The proposed bureau will be constituted with members of different agencies of the police, including Rapid Action Battalion, as well as the military secret service, a BB source revealed.

The BB itself will form a central intelligence cell to gather, scrutinise and analyse information from banks and other sources and then forward them to the bureau with recommendations for actions.

A finance ministry source said the BB proposal will be discussed in an inter-ministerial meeting and, if approved, will be tabled in parliament as a bill.

The initiative to formulate a tougher anti-money laundering as well as anti-terrorism finance law reflects the finance minister's promise made last June when he extended the time for whitening black money.

Another finance ministry source said although the initiative was taken up in 2002 following pressure from the US, its progress has been very slow due mainly to opposition from some quarters in the government.