Behind the money in Bangladesh

In spite of widespread poverty and corruption, Bangladesh is working hard to build a credible anti-money laundering regime. Paul Cochrane reports from Dhaka on the challenges, which include a large and evolving grey economy.

Bangladesh’s fledgling anti-money laundering (AML) regime faces an uphill struggle, with the country ranked as one of the most corrupt on earth. An estimated US$7 billion flows into Bangladesh through illegal alternative remittance systems, Abul Barkat, Professor of Economics at Dhaka University told MLB, and there is an ‘economy within an economy’ generating some US$300 million in profits every year for Islamist political parties linked to fundamentalist and terrorist activities.