The Anti-Corruption Commission has retrieved Tk 15 lakh as interest of 2.04 million Singapore dollars siphoned off by BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's younger Son Arafat Rahman Koko.
ACC Chairman Ghulam Rahman told The Daily Star on Thursday that around three days back the amount reached ACC's account with Sonali Bank in the capital.
He added the transaction was made in the similar way through which the laundered amount was brought back to the country on November 22 last year.
The recovered money will now be spent in fighting corruption, he said.
The commission earlier had opened the Stolen Asset Recovery Account with the bank to receive the amount.
The money, equivalent to over Tk 13 crore, was deposited in Singapore by Koko and Ismail Hossain Saimon, son of former BNP minister late Akbar Hossain.
This was the first money laundering case in which the government could recover an amount.
ACC Deputy Director Abu Syeed on March 17, 2009 sued Koko and Saimon for laundering more than Tk 20 crore — Singapore $28,84,603.15 and US $9,32,672.81.
Koko had received the amount from two foreign companies China Harbour Engineer Company Ltd and Siemens and from Habibur Rahman, a Bangladeshi living in Dubai.
Trying him in absentia, a Dhaka court on June 23 last year sentenced Koko to six years' rigorous imprisonment. It also fined him around Tk 39 crore and ordered confiscating the laundered money.
Saimon was handed down the same sentence.
Source:The Daily Star
