Home minister calls for global cooperation to tackle digital fraud

Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed has called for coordinated global initiatives and the use of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), to combat digital scams and transnational fraud.
While speaking as a panelist at a high-level roundtable titled “Global Fraud Response Mechanism” at the Global Fraud Summit 2026 held in Vienna on Monday, he highlighted the growing challenges of digital scams, multi-level marketing (MLM) Ponzi schemes and corporate fraud in Bangladesh.
He said Bangladesh suffered an estimated financial loss of around Tk21,000 crore due to such fraudulent activities between 2006 and 2021, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs Bangladesh.
The minister also expressed concern over recent incidents involving the controversial MTFE and several questionable e-commerce platforms that allegedly defrauded people of billions of taka.
Quoting a report by Global Financial Integrity, he said Bangladesh lost an average of about $8.27 billion annually between 2009 and 2018 due to trade mis-invoicing.
He noted that the existing legal framework, including the Penal Code 1860, is inadequate to tackle modern white-collar crimes, and the government has already taken initiatives to reform relevant laws.
To strengthen global efforts against fraud, the minister proposed four key measures: enhancing research and strategic information sharing to understand emerging fraud techniques, strengthening regional and international cooperation platforms, introducing AI-driven monitoring systems and modern technologies and improving judicial frameworks and law enforcement capacity to ensure swift punishment for offenders.
 “We have adopted a zero-tolerance policy to ensure financial and digital security. However, due to the global nature of such crimes, it is not possible to eliminate them without cross-border cooperation,” he said.
The two-day summit is being attended by home ministers, policymakers and heads of international organisations from different countries.
The minister is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with the UK’s minister of state for home affairs on 17 March on the sidelines of the summit.
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