A city can become famous for one or more reasons; for instance, Dhaka is famous for its myriad of masjids, although some may prefer tagging traffic jams or 'relieving' denizens standing against a wall, looking smilingly towards the sky every now and then.

London is a top tourist destination for its red buses, red roses and David Cameron's integrity for having paid taxes for the red money his father stowed in Blairmore Holdings, a hitherto unknown overseas account.

Paris made its name for the soaring tower that Gustave Eiffel built, and for the quite unnecessary but abysmal l'affaire du voile (or the veil affair) under which Muslim schoolgirls cannot cover their head. 

Perhaps the French lost their freedom when they gifted to New York their most famous landmark, La Liberté Éclairant Le Monde (okay, the Statue of Liberty) that a Frenchman, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, designed, and another (the same Eiffel) constructed in 1886. More recently, it is also famous for a trump card that no one knew existed until a racist bigot from Queens opened his mouth.

Beijing draws visitors to the Great Wall that stretches thousands of miles beyond the Chinese capital, and to the Bird's Nest - which can house thousands, but is infamous for the many who would like to coo outside their given nests.

Taiwan carved a name for the 101-storied skyscraper it dared to construct in 2004, and . . . before you get any more impatient, I was coming to Panama.

One wonders why corporate service providers in some of the other economically-starving (?) cities like Panama City, despite their skyscrapers, casinos and nightclubs did not think of stashing others' secret monies to earn that extra buck for survival. One good reason could be because it is illegal, and those other cities, Dhaka included, have some self-respect, although we are not really living hand to mouth with 7 percent GDP in sight.

Also, it is not really illegal to have illegal money here, because come every budget, the reigning minister hands all large-scale tax evaders (the rubbish people) a bucket of white paint to legalise black taka, with his simultaneous pledge that the same mercy will not be shown the following year. It's a vicious loop. It may stop this financial year, we hope, and if so, I pledge to shave my head and cover it under a Panama hat only to weather the forty degrees that cometh every April.

Simply because it is that much convenient to turn 'guilt-less' overnight in Bangladesh, the motivation for the lords of the powerful ring to contact Mossack Fonseca, a law firm (hah!), is that much scant, although some have reportedly shown that investing across national boundaries is a better consideration than becoming seasonal b/w painters.

Some economic reporters have also tried to divert the pressure from the money-brities (perhaps because of Aishwarya of Bachchan fame) by explaining that there is nothing illegal in maintaining offshore accounts of funds, which were otherwise secretly transferred to perhaps evade home taxation. Arey Bhai, (always address the rich as your brother) Arey Bhai, if it were legitimate transactions, why did the bewildered world have to learn of such surreptitious holdings only after the names were leaked?

Despite the leaks being as large as the famous falls at Madhabkundo, a major tourist attraction in Sylhet, surprisingly very few people from the south side of the Niagara Falls, yet another awesome destination, have been named in the Pee-Pee (not to be confused as the source of the water drops). That is because they too follow the Bangla model –'I am bad' means 'I am good'. Oh! How I miss Michael Jackson!

That notion and the fact that we sleep like behush on Fridays even in some KPIs was enough reason for an international money-laundering racket to select Bangladesh as having the ideal central bank to hack. Sometime in February 4-5 this year, digital hackers conducted a failed heist of $850 million and a successful one of $101 million, proudly the highest known theft amount in the history of humankind. The nation under RTI and awkwardly, its Finance Minister was informed of the pond-theft amazingly one month after Bangladesh Bank became aware of it.

The unearthing of the mammoth international dakati was also an opportunity for the inquisitive to embark on a quest as to why the human species is suffixed with 'kind'. We can now reveal the cause by acknowledging the many novels as well as movies where gamblers are portrayed on the inside being more 'kind' than most people, which could be because of their drunken state spiked by fiscal profit or loss.

Therefore, who better to epitomise kindness than the Manila-based Chinese casino junket operator, who seemingly without his arm being twisted, decided to hand back to Bangladesh the money (in heaps of cash) that somehow made its way to his bank account? Somehow? But he is doing it in stages, lest the world thinks that returning cash in any amount is not heart-breaking. Or perhaps hoping that the Bangladesh Bank Governor will at one point say, "Keep the change", for him to reciprocate with a "Xie xie" (pr. sh-ay, sh-ay).

Talking about thank you, we owe big ones to Bangladesh Bank's recently-awakened security system and to the unsung Deustche Bank, the intermediary agency, which together jammed the transfer of another $850 million from Bangladesh's Central Bank's account at New York's Federal Reserve Bank. For those of us who do not handle that kind of cash, that in Bangla taka means almost 6,650 crore. Phew! I had no idea we had that much money tucked away in an overseas account.

The writer is a practising Architect at BashaBari Ltd., a Commonwealth Scholar and a Fellow, a Baden-Powell Fellow Scout Leader, and a Major Donor Rotarian.