Bangladesh Bank reserve heist: Submission of investigation report postponed for 92nd time

The investigation report in the case concerning the theft of Bangladesh Bank’s foreign exchange reserves was not submitted to the court today, Tuesday.

The court has set a new date for the submission of the investigation report, marking the 92nd time that the deadline has been deferred.

The date for submitting the investigation report had been scheduled for today, Tuesday. However, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police, which is conducting the investigation, failed to submit the report to the court on this date.

As a result, Dhaka additional chief metropolitan magistrate Jashita Islam fixed 18 February as the new date for the submission of the investigation report. This information was confirmed by sub-inspector Rokonuzzaman of the Prosecution Division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

In February 2016, USD 101 million (10 crore 10 lakh) was stolen from Bangladesh Bank’s foreign exchange reserves.

Unknown individuals carried out the theft by using fraudulent messages sent through the SWIFT payment system, enabling them to siphon off a large sum of money from Bangladesh Bank’s reserve account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the United States.

Then 39 days after the incident, Bangladesh Bank filed a case with Motijheel Police Station in the capital.

The case was lodged under the Money Laundering Prevention Act and the responsibility for the investigation was assigned to the CID. Since then, the CID has been conducting the investigation.

According to CID sources, USD 20 million (2 crore) was later recovered from Sri Lanka in connection with the reserve heist.

Bangladesh also recovered only USD 68,000 through the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) of the Philippines.

In addition, approximately USD 14 million was recovered through other initiatives. More recently, a Dhaka court issued an order for the confiscation and recovery of USD 81 million held at RCBC.