Financial Times reports.
The Emerson Bainbridge Building in London. The owner of which is Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed, former minister of Sheikh Hasina government. Photo: FT.
Morningsun Online Desk //

The Bangladesh government has requested the UK to trace the assets of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and members of her government. Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansoor said that the new administration is investigating the transfer of at least 2 lakh crore taka or 17 billion dollars from the banking system of the country during Hasina’s regime.

This information is known from the report of the British newspaper Financial Times on Wednesday. Ahsan H. Mansoor told the newspaper that the United Kingdom is one of the countries he has sought help in this regard. He said that the Bangladeshi authorities believe that the assets have been removed. He also said that such wealth may have been smuggled to the United States, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

The Governor of Bangladesh Bank said that the UK government has shown a very cooperative attitude. The country’s high commissioner visited his office and offered extensive technical assistance. He also said that the Bangladesh government wants to identify the source of funds for the £150 million property owned by the former land minister in Sheikh Hasina’s government. Bangladesh will seek help from the UK government so that this resource can be recovered.

British officials have also confirmed seeking help from the Bangladesh government. However, they did not want to give detailed information about this.

Bangladesh’s civil society as well as various groups have long accused Hasina and members of her government of corruption. However, Bangladesh has a strict currency control policy, under which citizens are allowed to take only a few thousand dollars abroad every year. In this regard, the governor said, such a large-scale theft cannot take place without the knowledge of the prime minister. However, investigations in this regard are still in the ‘preliminary stage’.

According to the Financial Times, these complaints from Bangladesh could create complex problems for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new Labor government. Because, Tulip Siddique, the city minister of this new Labor government of Britain, is Sheikh Hasina’s niece. Tulip did not respond to the Financial Times’ request for comment.

The chief adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh is the Nobel Peace Prize winning economist. Muhammad Yunus held a meeting with the UK High Commissioner in Dhaka for Britain’s help in this regard. Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam said that the Bangladeshi authorities are going to recover the money stolen from this country and smuggled abroad. This is one of the priorities of this government.

There have been allegations of vote rigging, rights violations and widespread corruption during Sheikh Hasina’s one-and-a-half-decade rule. The issue of foreign assets of Hasina’s party Awami League allies is widely discussed in Bangladesh and internationally. Earlier this year, Transparency International-UK cited a British real estate portfolio owned by companies linked to Bangladesh’s former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Jabed as an example of ‘undeclared assets’, saying authorities should investigate the matter.

In February of this year, an investigative report by the US media Bloomberg highlighted the huge empire of illegal wealth of these politicians in Bangladesh. It is said that Saifuzzaman Chowdhury has built a real estate empire in the UK with more than 350 properties worth about 200 million pounds. Bloomberg published the figures of Saifuzzaman Chowdhury’s wealth based on company house corporate accounts, mortgage charges and HM Land Registry transactions in the UK.

Saifuzzaman Chowdhury served as land minister for five years before the 12th national parliament election last January. He was re-elected as a Member of Parliament in the last election but did not get a place in the cabinet. However, he was the chairman of the parliamentary committee on land ministry.

Saifuzzaman Chowdhury’s lawyer Ajmalul Hossain QC said his client had “nothing to hide” and had not stolen anything. Ajmalul Hossain also said, ‘Saifuzzaman Chowdhury is a fourth generation businessman, who started acquiring his wealth in the 1990s.’ from

Former Minister of State for Information in the Sheikh Hasina government Mohammad Ali Arafat told the Financial Times that the investigation will clear the information about the former prime minister and his associates. He claimed, “(The new government) is trying to make everything look like massive corruption and they are blaming the former prime minister.”
The UK government said it would not comment on requests for mutual legal assistance from the Bangladeshi authorities, in line with its long-standing policy.