An interesting stat slipped silently through the financial papers in Bangladesh the other week. Reports briefly mentioned that deposits to Swiss banks from Bangladeshi nationals, residents, and corporate entities increased by 233% from 2023 to 2025, nearly cracking its all-time peak.
Despite this growth being labeled a “quantum leap”, little of the reporting on the exponential increase of money flowing out of Bangladesh was, in any way, critical or suitably reflective of just where this money originated or why this 41% year-on-year increase occurred. Instead, it was explained away simply as “not unusual”.
But a 233% increase over two years and a near-50% increase in the year following a popular revolution that installed an interim government led by Muhammad Yunus claiming to be committed to economic reform is quite unusual. Especially, when one considers the context that throughout 2024 and 2025, Bangladesh’s new interim government instituted a virtual economic witch hunt, pursuing business groups and individuals they confidently asserted were responsible for “looting” the country given the groups’ alleged proximity to the former Prime Minister.
By eliminating and restructuring bank boards within weeks of gaining power, freezing business and family assets, instituting travel bans, and even requesting Interpol red notices, the Yunus government built an extensive public narrative that it was acting on behalf of the aggrieved revolutionaries that installed them in power.
But nearly all of this was done via court order and without clear legal grounds or sufficient due process. That this was the approach only raises suspicions that the Yunus government, its figureheads, and advisors, completed one of the greatest cons in recent memory. In proclaiming the country had been looted, they installed themselves at the head of the very institutions alleged to have missing assets, and gained full control over what was there.
Viewed in this light, the massive and sudden increase in Swiss deposits points less in the direction of conspiracy. And when combined with the little scrutiny the papers – who had been strongly supportive of the Yunus government’s actions – gave to this news, only heightens reasonable suspicion that something terribly unjust has happened.
Now, we are watching as Bangladesh wrestles with the long echo of those opportunistic and disingenuous actions. In one instance, a Supreme Court lawyer has filed a writ seeking to investigate Yunus government officials for their role in privatizing the country’s measles vaccination program after over a 100 children died, despite the disease having previously been under control.
The current administration has a choice: it can follow in the footsteps of the Yunus government, or it can change tact and look to put these contested relations behind it. Given that the impacts of the Yunus government’s narrative is starting to loosen, it may be wise to pursue a different direction before more details of that temporary government’s malpractices come to light.
