The Central Investigation Department (CID) of police enlisted names of 7-8 Bangladesh Bank officials as the reserve fund heist suspects.The suspects have been interrogated several times and their bank accounts, email accounts, and mobile phone conversations are being checked.However, the investigation officers declined to disclose the names or their rank and file in the central bank.CID additional deputy inspector general Shah Alam said, “We have short-listed the suspects. We detected their sheer negligence of responsibility. But we are not yet sure whether they had any connivance with the hackers.”Two teams of the CID are now staying in Sri Lanka and the Philippines in connection with the investigation. A team of INTERPOL is also cooperating with them. DIG Shah Alam is coordinating the investigation process.Official computers and personal laptops of some Bangladesh Bank officials were seized after the $ 81 million reserve heist on 4 February.
On checking of the computers, CID found that some Chinese, Hong Kong, Japanese, Sri Lankan and Philippine nationals were involved in the hacking.INTERPOL has been requested for information about them. The money laundering branch of the INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB) for Bangladesh has been involved in the investigation.The hackers took control of the computer network of Bangladesh Bank through malware intrusion on the computer connected with SWIFT. Money was stolen through issuing payment order from the BB computers to Federal Reserve Bank of New York.A message was sent to a computer in Egypt on 4 February from a BB computer. CID asked the Egyptian authorities concerned for information about the computer and its user.FRB of New York grew suspicious after receiving the very first payment order. It wanted to have the order verified by the Bangladesh Bank, but released the money before receiving any BB approval.However, the FRB of New York did not give any clarification to CID or to US Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) as to why it released the money without receiving BB consent.The forensic team of the Bangladesh Bank is also working on the matter. It checked all the computers of the bank, and is installing security software to avert further trouble.A three-member team, led by former BB governor Mohammad Farash Uddin, is also investigating the issue.Greenwatch correspondent
