Illegal currency trade amounts to Tk 100 crore a day: ACC Secy

DE Online Report
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Secretary Mahbub Hossain on Tuesday said that the banking sector is being deprived of foreign currency equivalent to approximately Tk 100 crore every day due to illegal buying and selling of foreign currency.
The ACC Secretary gave this information in a briefing to the journalists.
He said that the ACC has found evidence that some money exchangers including Janata, Sonali, Agrani, Mutual Trust, Pubali, Prabasi Kalyan, Jamuna Bank inside the airport area are involved in illegal buying and selling of foreign currency worth more than Tk 100 crore every day and money laundering. He also said that after receiving information from intelligence sources and following a specific written complaint, an enforcement operation was conducted yesterday under the supervision of Deputy Director of the Commission Syed Nazrul Islam. After conducting the operation, an organized syndicate of banks and money exchangers involved in the black market of foreign currency was found.
According to the ACC, the valuable remittances brought in cash and foreign currency by expatriate wage earners and air passengers at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport are supposed to be deposited in the national reserve through banking channels. But the unscrupulous bankers use the money of the bank without showing that it is collected in the banking channel and sell it in the market by themselves, which is later smuggled abroad again through money laundering. Thus the economic structure of the country is being damaged by smuggling valuable foreign currency of the country.