Bangladesh central banker accuses tycoons of ‘robbing banks’ of $17bn with spy agency help

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From the article: https://archive.is/FKuOF

Bangladesh’s new central bank chief has accused tycoons linked to the toppled regime of Sheikh Hasina of working with members of the country’s powerful military intelligence agency to siphon $17bn out of the banking sector during her rule.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Ahsan Mansur — who was appointed Bangladesh Bank governor after Sheikh Hasina fled the country in June — said the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence had helped force takeovers of leading banks.

Mansur said an estimated Tk2tn ($16.7bn) had been spirited out of Bangladesh after the bank takeovers, using methods such as loans made to their new shareholders and inflated import invoices.

“This is the biggest, highest robbing of banks by any international standards,” he said. “It didn’t happen on that scale anywhere, and it was state-sponsored and it couldn’t have happened without intelligence people putting guns [to former bank CEOs’] heads.”

The governor said Mohammed Saiful Alam, founder and chair of industrial conglomerate S Alam, and his associates had “siphoned off” at least $10bn “as a minimum” from the banking system after taking control of banks with the help of the DGFI. “Every day they were granting loans to themselves,” he said.