Within weeks of announcing new visa policy for Bangladeshi nationals, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking American banks to provide detail information on bank accounts of Bangladeshi-Americans living in the United States or Bangladeshi citizens having bank accounts in the country. Meanwhile, another US organization began gathering information on properties owned by Bangladeshi citizen. Such steps have already generated doubt as several US lawmakers have called upon President Joe Biden to impose ‘stricter sanctions’ on a number of individuals in Bangladesh. It was earlier reported in the media that lobbyists working for Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) have been frantically pushing the US Department of Treasury to impose sanctions on dozens of Bangladeshi nationals using Global Magnitsky Act.
On May 17, 2023, six Republican congressmen namely Bob Good (VA-05), Scott Perry (PA-10), Barry Moore (AL-02), Tim Burchett (TN-02), Warren Davidson (OH-08), and Keith Self (TX-03) sent a letter to President Joe Biden seeking, “stricter individual sanctions, banning Bangladesh law enforcement and military personnel from participating in UN peacekeeping missions”.
They also said: “Since Sheikh Hasina’s rise to power, the Hindu population has been halved. Looting and burning of households, destruction of temples and religious idols, murder, rape, and forced religious conversion are causing Hindus to flee Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina’s government also has persecuted Bangladesh’s minority Christian population-burning and looting places of worship, jailing pastors, and breaking up families when religious conversion occurs”.
Also read EU may announce ‘new visa policy’ for Bangladesh soon
Meanwhile a report from Just the News said, Republican members of the US Congress have announced the review of the Bank of America (BoA) after a whistleblower confirmed the company has provided private personal information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) without due legal process.
The report said House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie wrote to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, telling him of the investigation and asking for documentation about the bank’s actions.
“The lawmakers pointed to the testimony of retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill, who said that the bank ‘with no directive from the FBI, data-mined its customer base. And they data-mined a date range of 5 to 7 January [of 2021] any BoA customer who used a BoA product'”.
The whistleblower said the bank especially reviewed anyone who had purchased a firearm at that point.
“This information appears to have had no individualized nexus to particularized criminal conduct, but was rather a data dump of BoA customers’ transactions over a three-day period. This information undoubtedly included private details about BoA customers who had nothing at all to do with the events of January 6”, said the letter.
Every Bangladeshi Thanks DoJ’s timely move to gather Bank Accounts details of Bangladeshi Americans and Bangladeshis kept their looted black money in US and Canadian banks. Many Bangladeshis also purchased properties with their looted corrupt money. We want US, Canadian and European governments to confiscate those properties immediately.
Yes! It’s like cutting off the umbilical cord of placenta (corruption).Thank you DOJ. If those corrupt Bangladeshis are unable to use looted black money to purchase properties and maintain luxury lifestyle in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia in the expense of democracy, sweat and blood of poor Bangladeshi worker, it will definitely help general Law abiding Bangladeshi to raise up for democracy and create an exploitation free society.