DNC scrutinising financial transactions of listed drug dealers

Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) is scrutinising financial transactions of some listed drug dealers to know their presumed involvement in money laundering.

DNC's additional director (intelligence) Md Nazrul Islam Sikder said they initiated the move mainly to know whether the drug dealers are involved in money laundering or not, reports BSS on Monday.

Asked about the updated list of drug peddlers, he said they are still updating the list of drug dealers, adding, “We have got updated list of the drug dealers from one third districts across the country.”

But, he declined to reveal more in this regard and said they have earlier prepared a list of 900 drug peddlers.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is also conducting inquiry into asset details of over 200 listed drug dealers, said ACC Deputy Director (public relations) Pranab Kumar Bhattacharjee.

But, the ACC did not served any notice to the listed drug dealers seeking detail information of their assets

ACC earlier launched inquiries into assets against over 200 drug traders in line with the lists sent to the commission by DNC.

Directors of different wings of the national anti-graft agency were entrusted with coordinating the activities of the inquiries, Pranab said.

The DNC, in the first phase, sent a list of 465 alleged drug traders in January, 2017 to initiate inquiries into their assets and in the second phase, it forwarded a list of 141 suspected drug dealers to the Commission in January this year.

Replying to a query about the DNC’s move in capturing the listed drug traders, DNC additional director (intelligence) Md Nazrul Islam Sikder earlier said: “We have already widened our intelligence surveillance across the country to collect advance information about their movements. We are also conducting drives based on the information.”

“We are currently working as per the directives of the Home Ministry and the core committee to prevent the drug trading,” he said.

The government has earlier formed a core committee involving representatives from all the intelligence agencies, police, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Ansar, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Coast Guard and the DNC to monitor the overall activities of different law enforcement agencies against the abuse of drugs.

Director General (DG) of DNC Mohammod Jamal Uddin Ahmed is the convener of the core committee.