ACC files charge against 16 officials from Bashundhara and NBL

The ACC on Wednesday filed a case against 16 people including the chairman of Bashundhara Group Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, his two sons and 13 officials of National Bank Ltd (NBL) for embezzling money and it’s laundering.

Director General (Investigation) of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Md Akhtar Hossain said this during its regular briefing at the commission headquarters in Dhaka.

The case was filed by Deputy Director (DD) of the commission’s headquarters Md Jahangir Alam as the complainant, he said.

The others accused in the case are managing director of Bashundhara Import & Export Ltd Sadat Sobhan and its director Safiat Sobhan; National Bank directors Monowara Shikder, Parveen Haque Sikder, Moazzem Hossain, Rick Haque Sikder, Ron Haque Sikder and Md Anwar Hossain; former deputy minister AKM Enamul Haque Shamim; manager of the Gulshan Branch of the bank Arif Md Shahidul Haque; and six other top officials of the same bank.

According to the ACC, the accused persons in connivance with each other approved and disbursed loans totalling Taka 1,350 crore in the name of Bashundhara Import & Export Ltd. in violation of the rules of the National Bank and Bangladesh Bank.

The loan was sanctioned based on false financial statements without adequate collateral, stock reports, inspection reports, credit ratings, or verification of the borrower’s actual repayment capacity. They also deliberately ignored the borrower’s existing liabilities of Taka 629.16 crore with other banks.

Although the borrower belonged to the Bashundhara Group, they were shown as a separate group while approval of the loan was beyond the single borrower exposure limit.

The ACC further revealed that Taka 600 crore of the funded loans was not used for legitimate purposes, instead, the accused transferred the funds to the accounts of various related entities and withdrew cash, thereby embezzling the money and engaging in money laundering to conceal its source and ownership.

For these offences, a case has been filed against them under Sections 420, 409 and 109 of the Penal Code, section 5(2) of the Anti-Corruption Act, 1947 and sections 4(2) and 4(3) of the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012.