Bangladesh Bank has found evidence that human traffickers used banking channels to launder money in and outside the country, according to a top official of the central bank.

In an investigation, the BB has detected that traffickers made monetary transactions through some bank branches in Cox's Bazar town and Teknaf upazila.

The central bank referred the money laundering cases to the Anti-Corruption Commission and those of terrorist financing to the Criminal Investigation Department of police, said BB Deputy Governor Abu Hena Mohd Razee Hassan.

“We will take action against the banks involved in these activities,” Hassan told The Daily Star on Tuesday.

He, however, declined to give names of the banks, saying investigation was still going on.

In recent times, Bangladesh and Myanmar saw an exodus of people travelling south by boat through the Bay of Bengal towards Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. A number of them died during the perilous

journey while many others were killed by human traffickers.

In Bangladesh, organised gangs of traffickers extorted money from the families of the victims through formal payment systems.

Now, the BB has moved to address the issue as a team of the Asia/Pacific Group (APG) on Money Laundering is expected to visit Bangladesh in October for an on-site supervision to see Bangladesh's position in dealing with the issues of money laundering and terror financing.

Bangladesh came out of the APG grey list last year following the enactment of laws relating to anti-money laundering and terror financing in 2012.

Now, it is on the way to become a compliant country. But money laundering with regard to illegal migration might spoil Bangladesh's prospect of achieving the feat.

Wishing anonymity, a BB official said, “If Bangladesh falls in the grey category again, it will affect the costs of doing business.”

Foreign direct and portfolio investments in the country would be affected, and confirmation charges for letter of credit for imports would go up, added the official.

In 2002 and 2008, the APG conducted two rounds of evaluation on Bangladesh to assess the country's level of compliance with the international standard for combating money laundering and terror financing. These peer reviews are referred to as “mutual evaluations”.

Founded in 1997, the APG is an autonomous and collaborative international organisation consisting of 41 members and a number of international and regional observers. 

Some of the key international organisations support the efforts of the APG in the region. They include the Financial Action Task Force, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, OECD, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Asian Development Bank and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.