US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Senior Research Analyst Mary Jo Melancon and Senior Intelligence Research Specialist Kristen J King, who arrived here last week, have already sat with Bangladesh Bank (BB) officials on Monday and Tuesday.

Today they will illustrate and orient a select group of police, judicial, customs and central bank officials to how FinCEN operates to safeguard the US financial system from abuses and crimes like terrorist financing and money laundering, BB sources said.

The Washington-Dhaka high-level cooperation to clip the wings of the Islamist terrors comes concurrently with the recent captures of the top two JMB masterminds and the government's inability so far to unearth the sources and ways of their funds.

While Melancon and King were discussing strategies with BB officials to detect and prevent terror financing on Tuesday, the foreign minister was briefing the foreign envoys on the situation following the arrests of JMB supremo Abdur Rahman and his second-in-command Bangla Bhai.

After the two-hour lunch briefing, US Charge d'Affaires Judith Chammas said, "If requested, I'm sure we'll be able to provide assistance," in the investigation into militancy. She also mentioned that the US has already an ongoing assistance programme in Bangladesh in countering terrorism.

Besides, in line with a US prescription Bangladesh is currently restructuring the existing Anti-Money Laundering Act and also working on a terrorist financing act. The new legislation will provide for setting up a financial crime investigation and prosecution office (FCIPO) in the government and a financial intelligence unit (FIU) at the BB. The US government is providing technical and other facilities towards forming both the FCIPO and FIU.

The two US experts are here also to know about the existing monetary transaction system and the possible ways of terrorist financing within it.

A BB source said an FIU is already under the process of being set up at the central bank and Tk 31 lakh has already been sanctioned for purchasing the necessary equipment.

DISMAL BB BIDS TO TRACE TERROR FUNDS
After the August-17 countrywide bombing showdown of the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the BB undertook an initiative to find out if Rahman and Bangla Bhai had any bank account. The BB attempt in September was also aimed at knowing, if there were any accounts, how much money had they have and its source or sources.

But the probe could sniff out only a handful of bank accounts linked to the militants, most of which had a few thousand taka in deposit and their total transaction amounting to just Tk 11 lakh.

A BB source said they did not find any more information and so, after a while, handed in their report to the home ministry.

However, after last Thursday's surrender of Abdur Rahman, the police got hold of some banking documents in his Sylhet hideout including three chequebooks of three different banks in real or fake names.

One of the accounts is with Rupali Bank Pallabi Branch in Dhaka, another with Janata Bank Brahmanbaria Branch and the last with Islami Bank Lal Dighirparh Branch in Sylhet.

The account with the Islami Bank Lal Dighirparh Branch is in the name of Sabbir Ahmed, though it had really been operated by Saidur Rahman, former Habiganj district amir of Jamaat-e-Islami, who has been on the run since Rahman's arrest. To this account about Tk 4 lakh was electronically transferred from the same bank's Savar and Gazipur branches.

The account with Rupali Bank Pallabi Branch is also in the name of Saidur Rahman. But the amount of transaction in this account was very insignificant.

The central bank sent three teams last Monday to look into the three accounts and two other teams to Islami Bank's Gazipur and Savar branches yesterday.

The two BB teams sent to Sylhet and Brahmanbaria were still probing yesterday. But the information gleaned so far showed there was not any large transaction that can finance any large-scale terrorist activity.

The five probe teams will report their findings to the intelligence agencies, which will then act according to the laws, BB Governor Salehuddin Ahmed told the press yesterday.

However, he said, if the teams find any banks or bank officials responsible for any irregularities in this regard then the BB will take action against them according to the provisions of the Bank Company Act.

A central bank source said under the existing system it really is very difficult for them to scent out any source of terror financing, as the BB has to depend mainly on its banking-related information.

However, other sources in the banking sector said high officials and directors of some banks are involved in the transactions of money used to feed terrorist activities and if the BB and the intelligence agencies investigate these suspects the fund channelling should not be too tough to trace.

Again, another BB source claimed the bank has much limitation as well as systemic loopholes, which incapacitates it to detect and check such suspicious transactions.