A person purchased a savings certificate worth Tk 25 lakh from the Motijheel office of the Bangladesh Bank last Thursday. His bank account is in the National Press Club branch of Agrani Bank. After four days, the deposit was redeemed last Monday and the money was withdrawn to another person’s account at the Dinajpur branch of NRBC Bank. The money was withdrawn from the bank’s Shyamoli branch in Dhaka on the same day.
In the same process, an attempt was made to withdraw Tk 30 lakh through Dutch-Bangla Bank and Tk 20 lakh through NRB Bank on the same day. But when it came to the attention of the Bangladesh Bank, they blocked it.
According to the information received, as of last August, customers had savings certificates worth Tk 3 lakh 40 thousand 71 crores in affiliated institutions, including banks. Bangladesh Bank, all public and private commercial banks, Savings Departments, and Post Offices together buy and redeem these savings certificates from about 12 thousand branches. Out of this fraud was detected only in the case of savings certificates purchased from the Bangladesh Bank’s Motijheel office. It is not yet known if the same incident has happened elsewhere. These savings bank transactions are controlled using the servers of the Ministry of Finance. It was also not confirmed whether the identified fraud cases were done by hacking these three servers.
However, Bangladesh Bank has spoken to the savings bond buyers involved in the three incidents. The customers said that they did not apply for redeeming the savings card. As a result, no One Time Password (OTP) went to their phone.
The Ministry of Finance, Bangladesh Bank, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), and NRBC Bank have formed separate investigation committees to investigate the incident. Bangladesh Bank has conducted a General Diary (GD) at Motijheel police station. The legal wing of the bank is regularly preparing to file cases.
Bangladesh Bank immediately reported the incident to the highest level of the government. The three officials of Bangladesh Bank who had the password to sell savings bonds, have been removed from their duties and given new duties to three others.
According to the rules, the office from which savings bonds are purchased, changes any informationApplication for interest or principal must be made to that office. After receiving the application an OTP is sent to the mobile number provided by the customer. The present customer immediately shows the OTP to the employee of the concerned organization and then changes the information using the specified process. But in all cases, the server has a digital footprint or evidence.
According to sources, Bangladesh Bank initially identified the account of the Dinajpur branch of NRBC Bank and collected all the information including the account opening form. And from where the money was withdrawn, the bank is trying to identify the person who withdrew the money by collecting the CCTV footage of the bank’s Shyamoli branch.
An official of Bangladesh Bank told Samakal that customers are not able to withdraw savings certificates from several weak banks, including the five banks that are going to be merged. That’s why the request to change banks has increased in recent times. Considering the customer’s problem, banks are being changed from the side of the institutions. Officials are also keeping in mind whether someone has committed fraud using this opportunity.
A major sector of government borrowing from domestic sources is savings bonds. Once savings bonds were sold, redeemed, and interest was charged manually. At that time, there was no way to track even if the same person bought savings certificates from multiple offices. Now four types of savings cards and related online services of all institutions are done from the same server. Different User IDs and Passwords are given for each office. Each office uses that information to sell, interest, or redeem savings bonds. Currently, a person can buy a savings certificate of up to Tk 50 lakh in a single name.
Bangladesh Bank spokesperson and executive director Arif Hossain Khan said that a high-level investigation committee has been formed immediately after learning of the incident. At the same time Motijheel police station has been GD. It can be said after the investigation that this fraud has been done through a software hack, or money has been embezzled in some other way. Mezbah Uddin, Officer-in-Charge of Motijheel police station said, considering the importance of the matter, an investigation officer has already been appointed. What happened at the end of the investigation can be said. Related formulasAccording to R, the investigation is going on about the person who withdrew the money with the check of the foreigner’s account. It is being investigated whether any official of the concerned banks is conniving with this. The online system of the head office of these banks is being checked by the Bangladesh Bank. Besides, an investigation team from BFIU is scheduled to visit the Dinajpur branch of NRBC Bank today on Wednesday.
Managing Director of NRBC Bank Touhidul Alam Khan said, ” All the necessary information has been given to the central bank. At the same time, the internal investigation department has been asked to investigate and report.
