The Criminal Investigation Department on Thursday said that the agency launched an investigation against Basundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan and managing director Sayem Sobhan Anvir for their alleged involvement in money laundering.
Superintendent of CID media wing Azad Rahman in a press release said that the CID had decided to investigate the allegations of embezzlement, laundering of thousands of crores of taka through fraudulence, forgery, tax evasion, VAT evasion, under-invoicing and over-invoicing against different organisations related to Bashundhara Group.
Bashundhara Group had allegedly bought land at Tk 20-25 lakh per bigha by cheating the land owners. But it borrowed more than TK 42,000 crore from bankshowing the price of per katha land at Tk 3 crore.
The company allegedly was implementing projects by filling up public and government properties like canals and rivers without the approval of RAJUK, the press release said.
It has been accused of illegally occupying a total of 1, 016 acres of land including 800 acres of government properties in Bashundhara residential area and 216 acres of Bhawal Raj Estate.
Besides, there are allegations of grabbing vast land by East West Properties Limited in different blocks of Bashundhara Residential Area, which is estimated to be worth more than Tk 1.5 lakh crore.
Ahmed Akbar Sobhan and his on Sayem Sobhan Anvir were involved in laundering money to Dubai, Singapore, Cyprus, London, Malaysia and other countries, the press release said.
Bashundhara Group›s Singapore office is being looked after by Ahmed Akbar’s elder son Sadat Sobhan Tanveer, who allegedly took thousands of crores of taka loan from different banks by showing one project after another, but never repaid the loans.
Meanwhile, Bashundhara Oil & Gas (Keraniganj, Dhaka) had been accused of importing bitumen worth approximately Tk 2,000 crores from abroad with the help of trade-based money laundering and later supplying the imported bitumen to different parts of Bangladesh through a monopoly business under the control of a powerful syndicate controlling the price.
The CID said that Sayem Sobhan Anvir allegedly controlled the syndicate of gold smuggling in Bangladesh.
NEW AGE
