The central bank of Bangladesh has decided to investigate two alleged over-invoicing scams.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) suspects that scams were perpetrated by two commercial banks that opened letters of credit (L/Cs) to import edible oil.

Price monitoring

The central bank says it is closely monitoring prices on documents attached to L/Cs opened by commercial banks for commodity imports.

As a result, BB says it found prices on L/Cs opened for edible oil at higher than the prevailing price.

Investigations

The central bank says one of the commercial banks under investigation is the Khatungong branch of what they describe as a leading private commercial bank.

It allegedly opened an L/C for crude soybean oil valued at US$1315.53 per tonne on the documentation at a time when BB says the international market price was US$1216.53 per tonne.

Another bank allegedly opened an L/C for crude palm oil worth US$1212.00 per tonne when the international market price was US$1091.94 per tonne.

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