The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is going to install an ultra-modern laboratory to identify people involved in corruption, money laundering, illegal money transactions and other irregularities, said officials of the ACC.
According to sources, the lab will be set up at the ACC headquarters with the help of a skilled technical team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in India. The ACC is also going to set up a forensic lab with the same equipment as used by various domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, including the FBI and CBI.
ACC sources said as part of the installation of the lab, infrastructures, including a 2000 square feet data centre, have already been completed. Sophisticated equipment machinery have also been brought from various developed countries, especially from the USA, UK, Singapore, Sweden and Canada. A team led by ACC Information Technology and Cyber Unit Chief Rajiv Hasan is going to the US next week for higher training in forensic tests. Activities of the forensic lab may start by the end of this month. In the first phase, the cost for the installation of the lab is estimated at Tk 8 crore. An organization named 'Dynamic Solutions' has been assigned to set up the lab through tenders.
ACC Chairman Iqbal Mahmood said various sorts of irregularities and corruptions are taking place in the country through the use information technology. Illegal money is being transacted or transferred in different ways. Various devices are being used in these illicit acts.
“The ACC investigators during the investigation will seize devices used by the accused or the suspected people and the ACC men will verify the allegations of using devices in the lab”, said the ACC Chairman.
ACC Officials said immediately after the installation of the lab, forensic tests will be conducted on the transactions and mail handling by at least a dozen of accused.
Digital equipment available in the ACC’s forensic lab include computer forensics, mobile forensics, audio forensics and video forensics, they said.
According to the officials of the ACC’s Information Technology and Cyber Unit, confidential data from computer and digital storage media will be retrieved and analysed through computer forensics. Data and other valuable data will be stored or transferred through electronic devices such as thumb drives, the Internet, laptops and other systems.
The ACC will conduct forensic examinations of deleted data, swap files, memory dumps, empty folders on hard drives, print spooler files and slack spaces between temporary caches, they said.
Rajib Hasan, Director of Information Technology and Cyber Unit of the ACC, said, "We have inspected the activities of forensic labs of various intelligence agencies, including the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center (NTMC) and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The ACC has been trying since long to install a better forensic lab. To that end, the commission has arranged the work of the project,” he added.
He said with the launching of this forensic lab, the investigation into those involved in money laundering, corruption and other irregularities will reach a new level.
ACC director (Public Relations) Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya said ACC officials would be able to seize devices of the suspects or the accused people and conduct tests in the forensic lab. The data from the seized devices will be analysed and sent to the lab for forensic analysis. The information obtained by analyzing the lab will be sent to the investigating officer in the form of a report.
