The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has requested Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur to take necessary steps to temporarily freeze all bank officials' safe deposits in lockers in its vault.
A letter, signed by ACC Director Kazi Sayemuzzaman, has been sent to the central bank governor on Tuesday, ACC Deputy Director Akhtarul Islam told UNB.
Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed agreed on the need to freeze the lockers at a meeting with ACC Chairman Dr Mohammad Abdul Momen on January 30.
As per the ACC letter, ACC officials, in the presence of an executive magistrate, found 55,000 euro, $1.70 lakh, FDR worth Tk70 lakh, over one kilogram of gold in three sealed cans of former BB deputy governor Sitangshu Kumar Sur Chowhdury.
The information of the assets were not mentioned in the income tax returns, it said.
A review of the locker registers revealed sealed safes operated by some other BB officials as well, the ACC said in the letter.
On 27 January, a Dhaka court showed SK Sur arrested in a money laundering case filed by the ACC.
ACC finds foreign currency, gold, FDR documents in Sur’s lockers
The case was filed by the ACC on 26 December 2018 against Hallmark Group employees Tusher Ahmed, Mohammad Aslam Uddin and Sumon Bhuiyan for making suspicious transactions of Tk13.50 crore, allegedly amassed illegally, transferring the money to conceal its source.
Sur was detained by the ACC with the help of the Detective Branch (DB) of police from Dhaka's Segunbagicha area on 14 January while the ACC recovered documents of Tk16.25 lakh and fixed deposits worth Tk4.5 crore from SK Sur's Dhanmondi house on January 19.
In response to a letter from the ACC on January 23, the central bank informed the agency that SK Sur had kept valuables in three lockers at the bank.
SK Sur retired as the deputy governor of the central bank in January 2018.
As per rules, personal valuables of retired or working employees are kept in Bangladesh Bank's lockers, in packets or boxes in their names, sealed for 20 years from the date of the deposit.