The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), a central agency to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, convened a meeting with various government agencies, including law enforcers, on Thursday.
Its chief, Masud Biswas, urged for mutual collaboration and coordination among all agencies and sought stern actions against the wrongdoers. Here, the BFIU will help the agencies with various intelligence reports.
He hoped that all the agencies would collectively contain illegal financial activities, including hundi, online gambling, gaming, betting, forex trading, and cryptocurrency dealings.
Among others, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (BTRC), Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Bangladesh Police, its Special Branch (SB), Transnational and Cyber Crime Department of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), as well as intelligence agencies and private sector entities joined the meeting.
In a press release, the Bangladesh Bank said the nation is benefiting from surging transactions through digital and smart means. But these transaction methods are increasingly being used in illicit transactions, and giving a boost to the hundi business and money laundering. Thus, the economy is suffering losses and the country is losing foreign currencies.
The financial sector regulator also noted that the BFIU, along with other agencies, is working to prevent all sorts of money laundering and terrorist financing.
The BFIU is consistently undertaking awareness campaigns to stop the financial crimes. Moreover, the unit is consistently providing intelligence reports to law enforcement agencies.
It also has identified pertinent websites, apps, Facebook pages, and YouTube contents associated with the illicit activities, and forwarded them to law enforcement and regulatory authorities.