Diminutive and softly spoken, Dr Ahsan Mansur does not forecast the image of a male able to strike fear into the hearts of hardened kleptocrats.Yet Bangladeshs central bank guv has actually rattled someone effective, if the occasions of recent days are anything to go by.Mansur, 74, has remained in London this month, meeting Foreign Office minister Catherine West, NGOs, attorneys and professionals in tracing assets.They have assured to help him locate 10s of billions of dollars in funds presumably stolen from the south Asian countrys banking system under the program of Sheikh Hasina, the autocrat deposed in ins 2015 student-led revolution.In advance of his check out, a number of MPs were sent out emails attempting to discredit Mansur.It is unclear who is behind the project, which one MP termed disinformation.
But Mansur is in little doubt.
The asset recovery effort is to go after those people who have actually diverted massive quantities of resources from Bangladesh and, in specific, from the banking system, he told the Observer.We understand the names, all of us understand the names, and they or their operators are putting it together [the supposed disinformation project] The sole purpose is to lessen my reputation and reveal that whatever he says is not what he is.The emails linked to short articles written by reporters whose names turned out to be phony and whose pictures the Observer found to be stock images.
They focused particularly on the costly clothes and apparent financial comfort of Mansurs child, Mehreen.If Mansur was examining the inexplicable wealth of Bangladeshis, they suggested, why was his own family excluded? She is an American resident, she has little to do with Bangladesh, he said.Why [does] her dress code need to be various from an American? My consultants tell me to neglect it.
Or I can quit.
If I give up, they win.The most bemusing part was an e-mail sent by one British reputation management firm that implicated him of being prepared to impugn Tulip Siddiq, the UKs previous City minister and niece of Sheikh Hasina.View image in fullscreenStudents demonstration against Sheikh Hasinas regime last August, simply before she was ousted.
Photograph: Luis Tato/AFP/Getty ImagesSiddiq resigned from the ministerial function, that included oversight of anti-corruption, previously this year after Dhakas anti-corruption commission filed a criminal case against her.
She has rejected all wrongdoing.Mansur may be leading Bangladeshs property tracking endeavour, but he states he is not associated with the accusations against Siddiq.
Ive never stated anything to do with her situation, stated Mansur.
My main target is those who have actually looted my banks.London might be the crucial to that objective.
The Trump administrations decision to gut USAID has actually choked off one financing stream for the transitional federal government in Dhaka, as it tries to put the nations economy on a sound footing.That leaves the UK as the friendliest major economy, albeit one with a potentially less savoury function to play in searching Bangladeshi assets.As investigations by the Guardian, Financial Times and Al Jazeera have shown, a few of the allies of the Hasina regime now being investigated for corruption have poured numerous countless pounds into London property.Its among the favoured destinations for these kleptocrats, not just from Bangladesh however from other nations.
Its a sanctuary, no concern about it, stated Mansur.How much has been repatriated ever from Britain? Not much.But the UK, he states, is very supportive of Bangladeshs strategy to recover misappropriated possessions, a notoriously tough and time-consuming task.Experts from the National Crime Agency have flown out to Dhaka to encourage private investigators there, while personal business are helping too.This is the money of the typical individuals, gotten with total disregard to the law of the landAhsan MansurEarlier this month, Mansur hosted a meeting of lots of law office, litigation funders and property trackers who are keen to assist, albeit more in the hope of a charge than out of an ethical imperative.
Oversubscribed was the summit that late sign-ups had to join via a spillover Zoom call.We think about that British law has a lot of strong arrangements against these kinds of activities, said Mansur.
The [English] legal system has a reputation and if we can have some victories here, we can attain similar success in other jurisdictions.We are all beginners in this video game.
Ive never had experience handling these type of kleptocrats and possession recovery issues.Back home in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi authorities are intending to secure legal judgments versus a clutch of major business and political figures accused of corruption.The next action, according to Mansur, would be a formal request to the British federal government to impose freezing orders against assets kept in the UK.
Its part of the sanctions procedure, he said.
We are attempting to accelerate it.
Wed like to see substantial action on that front this year.He acknowledges that the ball is now in Dhakas court, with evidence-gathering secret to making sure that the UK and the broader international neighborhood can trace, freeze and repatriate presumably misappropriated assets.This is the money of the typical individuals who transferred [it] in banks and its been taken out with complete disregard to the law of the land, saidMansur.Plugging the resulting holes in the banking system is the starting point for stabilising the Bangladeshi economy long term, he said.Getting that procedure right is one reason why he came out of retirement in his 70s.
Its extremely bad for my health due to the fact that my high blood pressure is up and down.
The doctor says take a rest and here I am doing 15 meetings a day.But Mansur, who invested more than 25 years operating at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, might not withstand being there at the start of Bangladeshs next chapter.During Sheikh Hasinas time, the government offered me the governorship.
I pleasantly refused.I might decline since I understood shed fire me in 3 months and after that Id need to keep my mouth shut or leave the country.
I didnt want to do either.The speed with which Hasinas Awami League regime fell surprised Mansur.
The truth of the regimes death did not.
I never thought Id see this transformation in my life time.
She used to manage whatever in the nation, it was like the Hitler regime.But I understood something: their financial mismanagement was going to bring them down.Everything taken place much faster than what anyone might have thought.
Its a major relief, hopefully for better things to come.