The Anti-Corruption Commission on Wednesday filed a case against 16 people, including Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited chairman M Morshed Khan and three former managing directors of AB Bank Limited on charge of alleged embezzlement of Tk 383.22 crore.
The commission deputy director Sheikh Abdus Salam filed the case with Banani police against four PBTL bosses and 12 current or former senior officials of AB Bank, said ACC public relations officer Prabnab Kumar Bhattacharjee.
Morshed is also vice-chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party and a former minister for foreign affairs.
The accused also include PBTL vice-chairman Asgar Karim, its director Nasreen Khan, also wife of Morshed, and its chief executive officer Mehbub Chowdhury, and AB Bank former managing directors Kaiser Ahmed Chowdhury, M Fazlur Rahman and Shamim Ahmed, former deputy managing director Mosiur Rahman Chowdhury, executive vice-presidents Salma Akter and Mohadeb Sarkar, senior vice-president and relationship managers Syed Farhad Alam, Arshad Mahmud Khan and M Jahangir Alam, senior assistant vice-president Shahanur Parvin Chowdhury, assistant vice-president Jar-e-Khan Elahee and relationship officer M Kamaruzzaman.
According to the first information report, the alleged money embezzlement occurred between March 2011 and October 2015.
The FIR said that a PBTL application for Tk 348.50 crore loan guarantee was forwarded to the AB Bank head office from its Mohakhali branch without scrutiny in breach of the banking rules.
Later, the then managing directors approved non-changeable and unconditional bank guarantee without scrutinising the recommendations of the branch and the credit committee, the FIR said.
The PBTL managed to get Tk 348.50 crore from six banks and two financial institutions using the bank guarantee and then AB Bank paid off the loans with Tk 34.72 crore as interests, it added.
AB Bank officials issuing such an ‘ill-motivated’ loan guarantee without mortgage is an offence under Corruption Prevention Act 1947, the FIR said.
Source: New Age
