A documentary by the Financial Times alleges that around $234 billion was illicitly siphoned off from Bangladesh during the ousted premier Sheikh Hasina's 15-year regime.
The documentary, titled "Bangladesh's Missing Billions, Stolen in Plain Sight", was published on Thursday at the UK-based news agency Financial Times.
It features student leaders Rafia Rehnuma Hridi and Rezwan Ahmed Rifad, along with FT's South Asia bureau chief John Reed, commodities correspondent Susannah Savage, Spotlight on Corruption deputy director Helen Taylor and Westminster lobby reporter Rafe Uddin.
The documentary says that the stolen wealth was channelled abroad through over- and under-invoicing of trade, informal transfer systems such as hundi and hawala, and property deals in the United Kingdom.
It cites former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury and S Alam Group chair Mohammed Saiful Alam for their alleged roles in moving wealth abroad.
John Reed, the FT South Asia bureau chief, said that they heard stories of bank directors being taken away in some cases at gunpoint by intelligence officials and being forced to resign their positions after signing over their shares to people close to the old regime.
Mushtaq Khan, economics professor at the University of London, said that corruption was no secret during Hasina's tenure.
People close to the old regime took control of the banks with the help of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, he added.
Susannah Savage, an FT correspondent, said, "It's tempting for us to think of kleptocracy and grand corruption as something that happens far away. But the important thing is to understand that kleptocracy and grand corruption are a global problem, and the UK is at the heart of that problem".
Knowing that money has been stolen is one thing, but getting it back is something else. One of the problems of asset recovery is that it often involves settlements - cutting a deal with whoever stole the cash. It becomes a balance between getting the money back and what is acceptable to the Bangladeshi public. Criminal prosecutions require a very high standard of evidence, she added.
Ifty Islam, an adviser to Bangladesh Bank's asset recovery taskforce, described the process as one of the most complicated in history.
Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus was also featured in the film.
"People say you can't get all of them. I said, whatever amount we can get. We have to find concrete evidence, follow the track and get the support of relevant governments," he added.
He also stated that one estimate indicated $234 billion was looted from the banking and business sectors through various means.
"This is probably the biggest money plundering from any country in the world," he added.
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