March 20, 2016
A Sri Lankan non-governmental organisation (NGO), at the centre of a billion-dollar global money laundering probe involving unknown hackers who broke into the website of the Bangladesh Central Bank (CB), had been registered with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) on October 16, 2014, a Business Times (BT) investigation has revealed.
The BT probe revealed that this organization, Shalika Foundation exists and has five directors in its incorporation documents at the RoC office. It has a registration number GA2974. The foundation – whose name was splashed across international media headlines – is registered as a company but operates as a social service organization. The names of its directors, which the Business Times has, were given in the RoC document.
The organisation is registered as a company and the contact in the registration form had the telephone number of the lawyer who incorporated it, the BT probe showed. Attempts at contacting two of the directors, its chairperson and another director whose contact numbers were given by another source, proved futile as the calls went unanswered.