The High Court has asked the authorities concerned to investigate the allegations regarding the assets and property of 459 Bangladeshi nationals in Dubai.
Four government bodies were asked to execute the order. The four agencies are the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) of Bangladesh Bank, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police and National Board of Revenue (NBR).
The HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat issued the order on Sunday (January 15) following a writ petition which was filed on the basis of a newspaper report.
The court asked the four agencies to submit the progress report within a month. The court, however, asked the newspaper, which published the news item, to submit evidence in support of the report.
The court also issued a rule questioning why the inaction of the authorities concerned on the complaint regarding the property of 459 Bangladeshis in Dubai should not be declared illegal.
On January 12, Advocate Subir Nandi filed the writ petition attaching a report in this regard published in a national daily.
According to the report, a huge amount of money has been transferred to Dubai from different parts of the world including Bangladesh openly and secretly.
With the reinvestment of this money, Dubai’s financial and real estate sectors are booming.
Based on a report of US-based Centre for Advanced Defense Studies, the EU Tax Observatory said at least 459 Bangladeshis have purchased property in Dubai concealing the information in their own country and the number of property was 972 in 2020.
According to the report, Bangladeshis have purchased property worth about one billion dollar during this period and Bangladeshis were the top buyers in the real estate sector of Dubai.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is now trying to boost foreign investment. For this, it is offering various facilities for the rich from abroad to buy property.
Experts opine that a huge amount of money is being transferred due to lack of effective and strong measures to stop money laundering, it said.