The Bangladesh Bank has claimed that the gold kept by the customs at the central bank’s vault was not adulterated.
The central bank made the statement at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon following a newspaper report over gold scam in BB vault, reports bdnews24.com.
Bangladesh Bank Executive Director Rabiul Hassan and General Manager Awlad Hossain Chowdhury spoke at the news conference.
“The purity of the gold kept by the customs detectives was 40 per cent, but it was recorded 80 per cent due to the similarity between the number 4 in Bangla and 8 in English,” Awlad said.
A registered goldsmith from Shokh Jewellers made the mistake, he claimed.
“The mistake Bangladesh Bank did was merely an error in recording the purity of gold,” Awlad said.
A national daily published a report on Tuesday over the 'gold scam' citing an inspection by the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID).
The CIID found the anomalies while inspecting randomly sampled gold from 963kg deposit in the central bank’s vault from January to April last year, Bangla daily Prothom Alo reported on Tuesday.
CIID kept gold coins and rings weighing 3.3kg in the vault on August 23, 2015, but during the inspection it found adulteration in the gold, which caused the state a loss of over Tk 11.1 million, according to the report.
The state suffered another loss of over Tk 19 million by showing 22 carat gold as that of 18 carat, the report claims.
The CIID inspection report was sent to the central bank via the National Board of Revenue.