Play store
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), the country’s key agency for combating money laundering, has significantly accelerated its activities since the change of government in 2024, freezing thousands of bank accounts and launching efforts to recover billions of taka allegedly siphoned abroad.
The agency and other government bodies have identified around 400 individuals and entities allegedly involved in laundering more than Tk800 billion. A coordinated joint task force has been formed to recover the funds in phases, according to officials involved in the process.
Many of the targeted individuals are former ministers, lawmakers, advisers, senior bureaucrats, businesspeople and leaders and activists of the ousted Awami League government.
Since August 2024, more than 7,500 bank accounts have been frozen by various agencies. The BFIU alone has frozen around 2,000 accounts belonging to nearly 400 individuals and entities, with about Tk350 billion blocked.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has frozen around 2,500 accounts involving nearly Tk160 billion, while the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has frozen accounts of 185 individuals and entities containing around Tk120 billion.
According to BFIU data, Tk760 billion was blocked between August 5, 2024 and June 2026 in 11 priority cases involving the family of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and 10 major business groups. Of the amount, Tk570 billion was blocked in Bangladesh and Tk190 billion abroad.
The accounts of 155 members of the Hasina family and 227 accounts linked to the S Alam family have been frozen, while around Tk320 billion allegedly linked to 42 other business groups has also been identified.
The government has hired foreign firms to assist in recovering assets held overseas, while legal proceedings are underway to recover funds and assets kept in Bangladesh.
BFIU data also show a sharp rise in suspicious transaction reports (STRs). The number reached 27,130 up to May in the 2025-26 fiscal year, compared with 17,345 in FY2023-24. In FY2024-25, STR and suspicious asset recovery reports totalled 30,199.
BFIU chief Ikhtiar Uddin Mohammad Mamun said the agency’s pace of work had increased substantially.
He said cases involving the 10 major business groups and the Hasina family would be resolved quickly, while foreign firms had been appointed to trace and recover assets linked to 42 groups.
“More groups and individuals are also being brought under scrutiny. Action will be taken against them in phases under a predetermined plan,” he said.
Officials said a committee had been formed to restructure the BFIU and give it greater authority. At present, the agency mainly investigates suspicious transactions and passes intelligence reports to the ACC, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and NBR for further action.
Over the past five years, the BFIU sent information on 623 cases to the ACC, 435 to the CID and 699 to the NBR, totalling 1,757 cases.
An inter-agency task force on stolen asset recovery and management was reconstituted in September 2024, bringing together the BFIU, ACC, CID and NBR’s intelligence units. In January 2025, 11 joint investigation teams were formed for 11 priority cases, with the ACC designated as the lead agency.
Experts, however, caution that recovering laundered money from abroad remains extremely difficult.
Transparency International Bangladesh Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said developing countries recover only around 1% of funds siphoned abroad and that the process often takes seven to eight years or longer.
He said Bangladesh had managed to recover money from Singapore only once, and that process took seven years.
Legal experts also stressed the need to establish the legal basis for calculating the amount of money laundered and proving the laundering process through documentary evidence. They said mutual legal assistance agreements with individual countries would be crucial for recovering assets held overseas.
An NBR investigation has meanwhile traced allegedly laundered assets worth around Tk400 billion in Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, North Macedonia, Malta, St Lucia and seven cities in Turkey between January and August 2025.
The scale of the investigations marks a significant shift in Bangladesh’s efforts to tackle illicit financial flows. But officials and experts say stronger legal powers, inter-agency coordination and international cooperation will be essential if the country is to turn frozen assets and investigations into actual recovery of laundered money.