Ahammad Foyez
Some 282 bank accounts of Destiny Group have a total balance of only Tk 18.51 crore while the top bosses of the group laundered at least Tk 5,113.95 crore, according to a report of Bangladesh Bank.
The group has deposited Tk 5,132.46 crore by its three sister concerns — Destiny 2000 Limited, Destiny Tree Plantation Limited and Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited — from 2002 to 2006, the report said.
The report said that the Destiny 2000 started operating bank accounts from 2000, DMCSL from 2005 and Destiny Tree Plantation from 2006.
The companies were maintaining their accounts mainly with Islami Bank, Shahjalal Islami Bank, Southeast Bank, the Trust Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Prime Bank, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Brac Bank, City Bank, and Premier Bank Limited, the BB report said.
The intelligence team of the central bank has found huge discrepancies with Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society’s statement. DMCSL had submited statement of assets and properties worth Tk 18.40 crore but the team has found that the company had assets and properties worth Tk 6.94 crore. The company submitted statement of current assets worth Tk 15.10 crore but the team found Tk assets worth 12.42 crore.
The BB report said that the companies of the group have embezzled money
through internal reinjection. The companies were using the process for laundering money, the report added.
Recently, the Bangladesh Bank sent the report to the Anti-Corruption Commission investigation team, an ACC official told New Age.
The report said that the Destiny Group and its different sister concerns made banking transactions with its clients illegally in the name of multi-level marketing.
The report said that the group has 37 companies but Destiny 2000 Limited, Destiny Tree Plantation Limited and Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited were mainly involved in the money laundering.
The ACC on July 31 filed two cases with Kalabagan police in the capital against 22 senior executives, including president M Harun-ur-Rashid, a former army chief, and managing director Mohammad Rafiqul Amin, of Destiny 2000 Ltd for laundering abroad about Tk 3,285 crore.
Along with Harun-ur-Rashid and Rafiqul Amin, 10 other executives of Destiny Tree Plantation Ltd were also accused of embezzling Tk 2,106.64 crore from the clients of the company.
Recently, the ACC has found that the group smuggled a huge amount of money out of the country to USA, Canada, Singapore, France and Hong Kong.
The commission team also sent mutual legal assistance requests to countries concerned seeking relevant information on money laundering.
Source: UNBConnect