The Anti-Corruption Commission on Thursday filed two cases against S Alam Group chairman Mohammed Saiful Alam and others on charges of laundering and embezzling Tk聽1,598 crore from Islami Bank PLC.
Saiful Alam was a close associate of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina who fled to India on August 5 past year after the fall of the authoritarian Awami League regime.
The anti-graft agency also filed a case against former road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader, also general secretary of Awami League, and three others on charges of causing losses of Tk聽686 crore in the construction of the Karnaphuli River Tunnel project.
ACC director general (prevention) Akhtar Hossain at a press briefing at the commission headquarters in the capital Dhaka confirmed the filing of the three cases.
The commission filed a case against Saiful Alam and 30 others on charges of embezzling Tk聽1,077 crore from Islami Bank by taking loans in the names of shell entities.
According to the case document, a total of 31 accused, including Saiful Alam, in collusion with each other, abused their power and committed criminal breach of trust by resorting to forgery, falsification and fraud.
They created fake documents in the names of non-existent companies and sent them from the investment proposal (loan proposal) division to the head office of Islami Bank for loan approval.
Following the same process, without proper verification or assessment of loan eligibility, the loan limits were increased and a total of Tk聽1,077.11 crore (Tk 1,281.45 crore with interest) was taken as loans from the private bank.
Later, the money was transferred to various entities linked to Saiful Alam and later was allegedly embezzled.
The ACC also filed another case against nine people, including Saiful Alam, on charges of laundering and embezzling Tk聽521 crore.
At Agrabad branch of Islami Bank, Tk 521 crore was transferred from the bank accounts of three shell companies 鈥� Alam Trading House, Shob Meher Spining Mills Ltd and Gold Star Trading House 鈥� to Top Ten Trading House and later the money was transferred to different entities owned by Saiful Alam.
The other accused include former Islami Bank managing director Monirul Moula, former executive vice-president Miftah Uddin, former deputy managing director Akij Uddin, Shob Meher Spining Mills鈥� managing director Md Moshiur Rahman, and its director Mohammad Shawkat Osman, Top Ten Trading House owner Almas Ali, Gold Star Trading House owner Bedarul Islam and Alam Trading owner Nurul Alam.
ACC deputy director Md Sirajul Haque filed a case with its Integrated District Office in Dhaka-1 against Obaidul Quader and three others on charges of causing losses of Tk聽686 crore in the construction of the Karnaphuli River Tunnel project.
The three other accused are Khandaker Anwarul Islam, former secretary of the Bridges Division, Kabir Ahmed, former chief engineer, and Alim Uddin Ahmed, former joint secretary.
ACC director general Md Akhtar Hossain said that the accused, in collusion with each other, abused their power by bypassing the negotiated price set by the negotiation committee and without any recommendation from foreign experts, added three unnecessary components 鈥� a service area, monitoring software and a tag boat 鈥� to the project that caused a loss of $59.80 million, or about Tk聽585.29 crore, to the government.
Apart from this, the accused allegedly violated provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2006 by appointing consultants at a cost of Tk聽55.21 lakh, further causing financial losses to the state.
According to the case statement, the negotiation committee had recommended implementing the project at $646 million, but the inclusion of the three additional, unnecessary items 鈥� which were not suggested by the foreign experts 鈥� inflated costs and caused losses of about Tk聽585 crore to the government and taxpayers.
