Published : 15 Mar 2016, 05:50 PM
Updated : 19 Oct 2022, 05:10 PM
The central bank has also launched an investigation into the cyber theft, which is considered the biggest in banking history.
Jubair Bin Huda, the central bank’s Accounts and Budgeting Department joint director, filed the case with Motijheel police on Tuesday afternoon.
Dhaka City police Deputy Commissioner Anwar Hossain told bdnews24.com that the case was lodged under the Money Laundering Prevention Act and the ICT Act, accusing several unknown persons.
The bank kept the government and its board in the dark for around a month, though it was aware that $101 million of its reserve money had been stolen in early February.
Even Finance Minister AMA Muhith came to know about the matter when a Philippine newspaper first reported the theft, saying $81 million entered the Philippines from the Bangladesh Bank’s account with the Fed.
Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman, facing intense pressure, resigned on Tuesday morning.
Following his resignation, the government sacked his deputies Md Abul Quasem and Nazneen Sultana, and Bank and Financial Institutions Division Secretary M Aslam Alam.
Muhith said former finance secretary Fazle Kabir was replacing Atiur.
He also said the government had formed a committee headed by former governor Mohammed Farashuddin to investigate the theft.
The two other members of the committee are computer science and engineering teacher at BUET M Kaykobad and the finance ministry’s Additional Secretary Gokul Chand Das.
The ministry, in its gazette on the committee, said the panel had been asked to submit an interim report within a month and the full report within 75 days.
The committee will check how the payment instructions were sent and to whom. Such transactions are made through Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication).
The investigators will also check the central bank’s measures to stop theft, the logic behind concealing the theft and whether central bank officials related to the matter were negligent in their duties.
The committee has been asked to assess the possibility of recovering the stolen funds and check measures to stop a recurrence of such incidents.
