ACC launches probe into Bangladeshi’s links in Panama Papers

The Anti-Corruption Commission on Thursday formed a three-member probe committee to investigate the involvement of Bangladeshi people with the illegal investment in offshore companies in the secretive tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.
The commission formed the committee four days after one of the biggest document leaks in history, which included illegal investment in offshore companies by world leaders, celebrities and sports stars.
The probe body led by commission’s deputy director Akter Hamid Bhuyan would investigate the allegation against Awami League presidium member Kazi Zafarullah, and directors of some of Bangladesh’s biggest business conglomerates, including the Summit, the Square, and the United Group of companies, an ACC director general told New Age.
He said that the commission had launched an inquiry in 2013 in this regard after a series of reports published at New Age, but the inquiry did not complete.
Reportedly in July 2006, Kazi Zafarullah along with his wife Nilufer Zafar, also a former lawmaker, became directors and shareholders of two offshore companies.
Documents showed that Kazi and Nilufer opened up a bank account in the Singaporean branch of a Swiss bank as directors of one of the companies, making them joint signatories.
The application form which the pair had signed gave details of their Gulshan address and stated that the company was for ‘investment purposes.’
Two years later, in April 2008, their son Kazi Raihan Zafar became director and shareholder of another British Virgin Island company, with his wife Fahra Murad (providing a Canadian address) and his mother Nilufer.
According to the published news, directors of Bangladesh’s some biggest business conglomerates, including the Summit, the Square, and the United Group of companies, own or have owned offshore companies in the secretive tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.