Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur has accused prominent business tycoons linked to the deposed Sheikh Hasina administration of colluding with the country’s military intelligence agency to siphon off $17 billion from the banking sector during her time in office.

In an interview with the Financial Times, published on Monday, Mansur – who assumed leadership at Bangladesh Bank following Sheikh Hasina's flight from the country in August – said the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) had been instrumental in forced takeovers of major banks.

According to Mansur, approximately Tk2,00,000 crore ($16.7 billion) was allegedly transferred out of Bangladesh through tactics like self-lending to newly installed bank shareholders and inflated import invoices. 

“This is the biggest, highest robbing of banks by any international standards,” he told the British daily.  “It didn’t happen on that scale anywhere, and it was state-sponsored and it couldn’t have happened without intelligence people putting guns [to former bank CEOs’] heads.”

Among the central figures Mansur identified is Mohammed Saiful Alam, founder and chairman of the S Alam Group, who, along with his associates, he alleged had redirected a minimum of $10 billion from the banking system, exploiting his newly acquired control over banks with DGFI assistance. “Every day they were granting loans to themselves,” he said.

The S Alam Group, through its legal representatives at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, refuted Mansur’s claims, saying there was “no truth” to these allegations. “The coordinated campaign of the interim government against the S Alam Group and several other leading businesses in Bangladesh has failed to respect even basic principles of due process,” it said.

“It has already undermined investor confidence and contributed to the deterioration of law and order,” the statement said. “Given the group’s record and contributions, we find the accusations by the governor… surprising and unjustified.”

The Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate, which handles media inquiries for Bangladesh’s Armed Forces Division, did not respond to the Financial Times’s request for comment. The daily could not reach the DGFI for comment either.

Mansur, a former IMF official, told the FT that board members of key banks had been coerced into selling their shares to figures like Saiful Alam, often under duress and threat. They were “hijacked from their houses” by intelligence officials and told “at gunpoint” to sell all their shares in the banks to “to Mr S Alam” and to resign their directorships, according to the central bank governor.

Abdul Mannan, ex-CEO of Islami Bank Bangladesh, recalled persistent pressure from figures close to Hasina’s administration, including demands to install board members suggested by the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Talking to the FT, Mannan, who now chairs First Security Islami Bank, described being detained for a full day in January 2017 by a senior defence official until he resigned.

Meanwhile, Mansur said Bangladesh planned to recover stolen funds after completing an audit of about a dozen mostly bankrupt banks taken over during Hasina’s regime. Once complete, he said, the audit would serve as evidence in both local and international courts.

Bangladesh’s interim government moved to block sales of shares in the banks after the ouster of Hasina’s government. Mansur said authorities now aimed to sell stakes in the banks to “good quality national or international strategic investors” to recapitalize them. 

Additionally, BB boss told the FT that Bangladesh would also seek to recover money taken out of the country by engaging international law firms to try to attach assets held by shareholders of the banks in locations like Dubai, Singapore and the UK.