An alleged private video leak of a senior Bangladeshi official had earlier rocked Dhaka's financial corridors. A per the latest reports, an initial investigation by the Bangladesh Bank, the country's central bank, has shown that they were not fake or digitally altered.
At the centre of the storm is the chief of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) AFM Shahinul Islam, who has now been sent on mandatory leave. "The BFIU chief will remain on leave until the investigation is completed. Further action will be taken after receiving the investigation report," central bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur was quoted as saying by media reports.
According to reports, a video that went viral on social media showed Shahinul Islam sending explicit content to a woman. There were more than one such video that captured the government official in "compromising positions", Bangladeshi media reports said. The clips were initially shared via WhatsApp and Messenger groups last week before they made their way to more social media platforms. The central bank's IT department has been tasked with verifying the authenticity of the videos, following which a probe report should be submitted to the Governor, the Bangladesh Post said in a report. Meanwhile, TBS News said in a report that the team's initial findings indicate that the video was not AI-generated.
The senior official, who was earlier accused of permitting a businessman to withdraw a huge sum from his frozen bank account, maintains his innocence. He reportedly alleged that the viral video was created using artificial intelligence by a group with malicious intentions. He reportedly told the press that Facebook removed such videos following his complaint.
"The indecent and immoral video" was created using AI after the perpetrators managed to attain footage of his office meetings and somehow stitched them together, Shahinul Islam was quoted as saying by the Daily Sun. "A vested quarter has been after me from the very beginning, and this is part of that conspiracy," he told DS.
Shahinul Islam succeeded Masud Biswas as the BFIU boss following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government.