ILLEGAL WEALTH 3 ex-BCL leaders, 25 others under ACC scanner

The Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday started investigating 28 more people including three former leaders of the Bangladesh Chhatra League on charge of accumulating illegal wealth through casino business and other ways.

The three former leaders of the ruling Awami League’s student body BCL are its former general secretary Siddique Nazmul Alam, running committee’s ousted president Rezwanul Haque Chowdhury and GS Golam Rabbani, an ACC director told New Age.

Besides, ACC director general Sayeed Mahbub Khan said at a press briefing on the day that the commission added these 28 people, including politicians and Public Works Department officials, to the list of 159 people under investigation.

Thus the ACC list of corruption suspects now has 187 individuals on it, he said, disclosing that it had already sent 105 names on the list to the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit asking for their bank details.

He said that the commission would take necessary steps to bar the corruption suspects from leaving the country, if necessary.

Earlier on September 30, ACC secretary Mohammad Delwar Bakht said that the commission had begun to gather information about the investments made by Siddique Nazmul Alam abroad and the sources of his earnings.

He then said that a formal inquiry against Nazmul would begin after necessary information would be collected.

He also said that the allegations against Nazmul had been forwarded to ACC’s complaint scrutiny cell for its opinion as the commission’s complaints centre considered media reports against the former BCL leader as complaint.

According to media reports, Nazmul Alam owns at least six companies in London including on housing, car accident claims, retail selling and employment agency.

Of the six, he jointly owns three companies and fully owns one. The ownership details about the two other firms could not be known.

The companies are Flexfog limited, Elite City Limited, Naz UK-BD Properties, SNB Autos, SNR UK Limited and Car Museum Ltd.

Nazmul lives in London on an investment visa.

To get a British investment visa, an expatriate has to invest at least £200,000, equivalent to Tk 2 crore.

UK-BD Properties, of which he is the sole owner, is located in East London, with a working capital of £750,000, roughly equivalent to Tk 10 crore.

The company was registered on July 10, 2018 with the British authorities.

Flexfog Limited at Bethnal Green was registered on January 30, 2014.

Elite City Limited, located on Boswell Street in central London, was registered on August 16, 2018.

SNB Autos, registered on September 21, 2016, is a car renting and leasing firm.

Nazmul was reportedly  also one of the 39 owners of the scam-hit erstwhile Farmers Bank Ltd, now operating under the name of Padma Bank Ltd.

He is said to have owned 10 lakh shares of Farmer’s Bank worth Tk one crore.

Nazmul had been BCL GS for five years since 2011.

HM Bodiuzzaman Shohag and Nazmul Alam were elected BCL president and general secretary after the Awami League formed government in 2009.

BCL leaders said that after Shohag-Nazmul committee had completed their term Nazmul left the country and started tourism business in Thailand and later he shifted his business operations to London.

On September 14, Awami League president and prime minister Sheikh Hasina removed Rezwanul Haque Chowdhury and Golam Rabbani from BCL leadership.

Various allegations surfaced against them after Jahangirnagar University vice-chancellor Farzana Islam orally complained to the PM that they had demanded a ‘four to six per cent cut’ from a Tk 1,445 crore university project.

A six per cent commission on the project cost roughly stood at Tk 86 crore.

On September 30, the anti-graft commission launched inquiries to detect the illegal wealth of the people involved in the unauthorised casino operations and other illegal businesses.

Of the 105 graft suspects, ACC collected various information about the wealth of high-level people comprising AL lawmakers Nurunnabi Chowdhury, Shamsul Hoque Chowdhury and Pankaj Nath, and former Juba League chairman Omar Faruk Chowdhury.

Wealth information was also collected about expelled or suspended JL leaders Khaled Mahmud Bhuiyan, Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat, Enamul Haque Arman, Dhaka North City Corporation’s ward councillor and Mohammadpur AL unit general secretary Habibur Rahman Mizan and controversial contractor SM Golam Kibria Shamim.

On September 18, law-enforcing agencies launched drives against illegal casinos and illegal bars in the capital and held several leaders of ruling Awami League’s youth front Juba League, among others, for their involvement in the casinos and other illegal businesses.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net