Bangladesh Bank is investigating 50 branches of different commercial banks for suspicious transactions as a part of its anti-money laundering drive.

The branches under investigation have been chosen because they were found to be opening large amounts of letters of credit (L/Cs) against imports.

Suspicions

Bangladesh Bank, which has established a special division focused on monitoring and inspecting banks to curb money laundering, says it considers the volumes of L/Cs opened at the branches suspicious.

Moreover, the bank says recent instability in the forex market is due to illegal money transfers under cover of over- and under-invoiced L/C transactions.

Special investigators

As a result of its suspicions, Bangladesh Bank has taken on investigators specifically to look into incidents of fictitious forex transactions and identify people involved in money laundering.

Bangladesh's currency and its forex markets have been volatile and unstable for the past year, with the Bangladesh taka depreciated by more than 17 per cent against the US dollar.

Bangladesh Bank and the finance ministry maintain that the indiscriminate opening of import L/Cs is the predominant cause of this situation.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or any of the other partners in DC-PRO.