Dhaka – The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Monday questioned the former Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor Dr Atiur Rahman for about two hours on the stealing of BB reserve by hackers earlier on February this year.
The former governor turned up to the CID office at Malibagh in the capital at around 10 am and left about 12 pm.
Sources said that he was asked about the BB heist and what action he had taken afterwards regarding the incident.But another sources said that all information regarding the questioning of the former governor would be kept secret as there is directions from the government’s high ups.
When the hacking incident took place, Atiur was the governor of the central bank. He tried to recover the money of the BB but this hacking incident was leaked in the media and the governor faced strong criticism.
Against such a criticism, Atiur resigned from his governor post on March 15 this year after meeting prime minister Sheikh Hasina over the cyber heist involving $101 million from its accounts with the Federal Reserve bank of New York.
His resignation came amid a firestorm over the cyber heist which caused Bangladesh to lose more than $101 million kept with the Federal Reserve Bank.
The incident came to light when Philippine’s Daily Inquirer ran a report on Feb 29 that the country was probing a money laundering incident involving cross-border electronic funds transfer.
It said that $101 million was wire-transferred on Feb 4 from the Bangladesh Bank’s US account to accounts in local banks.
Bangladesh Bank kept the government and its board of directors in the dark about the heist for around a month.
Finance minister AMA Muhith first learnt of the matter from media reports.
After the heist, the finance ministry formed a probe committee led by former BB governor Farashuddin to investigate the incident. The probe committee said that the incident took place due to the negligence of some officials of the central bank. – Staff Reporter
